Comment On It's A Java.Net Exception

It's always fun to have to talk to a manager like that.

You could be holding a red pen and say:

"This pen is red."
"No it's not.  It's blue."
"It's RED."
"Blue.  Clearly, you do not communicate well.  And do not understand this business.  That pen is blue.  It's clear to everyone around here that indeed, it is BLUE."


It deteriates from there...

Anonymous:

It's always fun to have to talk to a manager like that.

You could be holding a red pen and say:

"This pen is red."
"No it's not.  It's blue."
"It's RED."
"Blue.  Clearly, you do not communicate well.  And do not understand this business.  That pen is blue.  It's clear to everyone around here that indeed, it is BLUE."


It deteriates from there...

http://content.ytmnd.com/content/a/2/2/a224551a525ebf5e30cedf1f4ae16b99.gif

Sounds like Paul was hired for the following possible reasons:

1: to make another manager look bad by sabotating his project with unqualified developers
2: They needed a Skapegoat

That said I would have outright refused no matter what they offered. No need for a resume stain like that! 

Wait, the MAIL MANAGER killed the stock exchange for a day?

Are you SHITTING me?

I'm going to have to say that 'the real WTF™' here is that Paul was allowed (encouraged, forced?) to do C# programming in an all Java project rather than learning Java and building his piece in Java.  They're really not that different.  I'm best at Java, if I were to go to work for a C# shop I'd expect to be writing C# like everybody else.

 Now a bunch of Java programmers are going to have to maintain that C# module.  Of course that may lead to a series of more WTF's.

 Of course it sounds like this whole organization was more concerned about company politics than producing a solid product.  That's a WTF in itself.
 

Makes me glad I stuff my money under a mattress.

Alex Papadimoulis:

In the Preliminary Failure Report, a Senior Java Programmer laid the blame on an exception being thrown by Paul's system. It looked something like this:

java.lang.NullPointerException
    at java.io.Stream.ctor()
    at java.net.HttpRequest.GetResponseStream()
    at com.exchange.java.application.MailManager.getResponse()
    at com.exchange.java.application.MailManager.sendMail(string recipi ...
    at com.exchange.java.application.ActionHandler.failure(string message)
    ... 

Paul tried to explain to the Senior Java Programmer that this couldn't possibly be an exception from his system. His system was entirely .Net, and .Net exceptions do not look like that. They also are not littered with "java.lang." The Senior Java Programmer didn't buy it; it was escalated to the Lead Java Engineer.

Agreed, how can PaulaBeanV2 cause NullPointerExceptions ? It was Brillant the fist time it was written, wasnt it ?

I just don't understand why paul didn't learn java for this project.

Yep I understand it wasnt his fault for the bug ... but how hard it's to do like the other.

I'm a java and a c/c++ developer and my boss put me on a big project in .net.

Big Deal, I learned c# and no moron can put the blame on me because I used another technology than the one people use in my team.

I'm going to have to say that the real WTF is that he left a job paying 60% more than any other job he's had because of an error that wasn't even his fault.  If he's an even halfway decent programmer, they'll stop making him the scapegoat as soon as he proves himself.

so he used what he knew, at least his part worked. i can't believe that all of these java managers (well, i can, but it makes me cringe) assumed his part was throwing java exceptions (or at least wouldn't admit to it based on the desperate need for a scapegoat, which is probably the more likely story). ah, good times.

 

captcha: "truthiness" as in"truthiness is all relative in a manager's eyes..." 

Working on a really sensitive financial project for your fiancees father. What could go wrong?

 

Anonymous:

Working on a really sensitive financial project for your fiancees father. What could go wrong?

 

 You win.  End of thread.

Volmarias:

Wait, the MAIL MANAGER killed the stock exchange for a day?

Are you SHITTING me?

I was thinking the same thing, but then I realized that it is probably due to Alex's anonymization.  He typically changes the business domain, and I imagine he changed the exception too.  http://thedailywtf.com/forums/92506/ShowThread.aspx for more information.

[Note from Alex: The example is merely to illustrate what a Java exception looks like ("looked something like"). Since neither Paul nor myself are Java coders, I'm sure it's not perfect.]

    java.lang.NullPointerException
        at java.io.Stream.ctor()
        at java.net.HttpRequest.GetResponseStream()
        at com.exchange.java.application.MailManager.getResponse()
        at com.exchange.java.application.MailManager.sendMail(string recipi ...
        at com.exchange.java.application.ActionHandler.failure(string message)
        ...

Paul: This can't be from my code, because that exception was thrown by Java code!
Senior Java Programmer: No, this can't be thrown by Java code. Java does not have the classes java.io.Stream and java.net.HttpRequest. It has java.io.InputStream, java.io.OutputStream and javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest.

(Yes, I know it's just because of the anonymizing... ;) 

Volmarias:

Wait, the MAIL MANAGER killed the stock exchange for a day?

Are you SHITTING me?

Um, yeah, I've worked on stock exchanges and in related businesses for a long time, and I can easily see something stupid like that bringing down a key system that munges everything up (lots of financial systems just send e-mail on every failure, no matter how frequent (on occasion, I've seen one mail each ms), instead of also creating an error-message-channel within the application).

Point taken about modifying stuff you didn't invent, but we all have to do it. I am a Java programmer currently working in C# and also just inherited 25000 lines of VB spaghetti. It happens. 

Most organizations (I have worked for) have had mixed language environments. It is no big deal for a Java programmer to work in C# (and vice versa). Anyone who knows comp sci can learn Perl or whatever.

Some orgs have attempted to standardize on one environment because they think it will save cost on maintenance. It seems that by the time they rewrite half the system to be the same tech as the remainder, the whole company is already migrating to the Next Big Thing (TM) anyway and the ROI is never realized.

So rather than waste money and time reinventing the wheel and (maybe) achieving some (temporary) goal, we should be finding techniques to make hetergeneous environments work. SOAP/XML-RPC/Web Services is a start in that direction but I think we can do much better.

Just my 0.02

 

Is this related?:

http://news.com.com/NYSE+trading+halts+on+tech+glitch/2100-1050_3-5728412.html

Pap:

Anonymous:

It's always fun to have to talk to a manager like that.

You could be holding a red pen and say:

"This pen is red."
"No it's not.  It's blue."
"It's RED."
"Blue.  Clearly, you do not communicate well.  And do not understand this business.  That pen is blue.  It's clear to everyone around here that indeed, it is BLUE."


It deteriates from there...

http://content.ytmnd.com/content/a/2/2/a224551a525ebf5e30cedf1f4ae16b99.gif

 

Alex? :D 

I'm "Paul" and I was outright forbidden, FORBIDDEN (with shook fist) from doing Java development.  I think his exact words were "I want to shake these guys up, show them what a real programmer can do"

As for the resume smear, I don't list the mail manager.  I wouldn't even call it a major part of my duties there, only spent a week on it. I do, however, list the numerous successful projects.

And that 60% increase came in handy when I moved on and my new firm (whose policy is to match or beat prior pay-rate) asked for paystubs as proof of salary.

 

Anonymous:

I'm going to have to say that the real WTF is that he left a job paying 60% more than any other job he's had because of an error that wasn't even his fault.  If he's an even halfway decent programmer, they'll stop making him the scapegoat as soon as he proves himself.

Given that he stuck around for another year, it's obvious that he didn't leave because of that error. He probably left because the whole organisation was a mess. After all, a major failure like this is never the fault of a single programmer (deliberate sabotage perhaps excepted) but apparently the organisation was reluctant to understand that.

LOL.

You should have that framed if you havn't already. 

Pap:

Anonymous:

It's always fun to have to talk to a manager like that.

You could be holding a red pen and say:

"This pen is red."
"No it's not.  It's blue."
"It's RED."
"Blue.  Clearly, you do not communicate well.  And do not understand this business.  That pen is blue.  It's clear to everyone around here that indeed, it is BLUE."


It deteriates from there...

http://content.ytmnd.com/content/a/2/2/a224551a525ebf5e30cedf1f4ae16b99.gif

HAHAHAHA.  I'd love to see Mrs. _______ 's  response to that!
 

Anonymous:

I'm "Paul" and I was outright forbidden, FORBIDDEN (with shook fist) from doing Java development.  I think his exact words were "I want to shake these guys up, show them what a real programmer can do"

As for the resume smear, I don't list the mail manager.  I wouldn't even call it a major part of my duties there, only spent a week on it. I do, however, list the numerous successful projects.

And that 60% increase came in handy when I moved on and my new firm (whose policy is to match or beat prior pay-rate) asked for paystubs as proof of salary.

Take a look at the exception code again. He was referring to the (probably Alex-obfuscated) class name, not "smearing" you or your profession.
 

Then tell me Paul... Are you still engaged with Executive VP's daughter?

Anonymous:

I'm going to have to say that the real WTF
is that he left a job paying 60% more than any other job he's had
because of an error that wasn't even his fault.  If he's an even
halfway decent programmer, they'll stop making him the scapegoat as
soon as he proves himself.

I remember when I used to think like that.

The sad reality is that you can't prove your worth to people who see no worth in good design.

Moving on was the right thing to do. 

Alex Papadimoulis:

Paul tried to explain this again the Lead Java Engineer, saying that his portion isn't Java-based and doesn't throw Java exceptions. The Lead Java Engineer didn't buy it;

Are we getting the whole story? A whole Java development team couldn't tell the difference between a .NET a Java exception message? I'd guess more likely is that they were accusing his service of returning bad data that caused the exception.

Anonymous:

Pap:

Anonymous:

It's always fun to have to talk to a manager like that.

You could be holding a red pen and say:

"This pen is red."
"No it's not.  It's blue."
"It's RED."
"Blue.  Clearly, you do not communicate well.  And do not understand this business.  That pen is blue.  It's clear to everyone around here that indeed, it is BLUE."

It deteriates from there...

http://content.ytmnd.com/content/a/2/2/a224551a525ebf5e30cedf1f4ae16b99.gif

Alex? :D 

Resistence if futile...

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

Pap:

Anonymous:

It's always fun to have to talk to a manager like that.

You could be holding a red pen and say:

"This pen is red."
"No it's not.  It's blue."
"It's RED."
"Blue.  Clearly, you do not communicate well.  And do not understand this business.  That pen is blue.  It's clear to everyone around here that indeed, it is BLUE."

It deteriates from there...

http://content.ytmnd.com/content/a/2/2/a224551a525ebf5e30cedf1f4ae16b99.gif

Alex? :D 

Resistence if futile...

Damn ... Resistence IS futile...

"This pen is red."
"No it's not. It's blue."

THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!!!

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

I'm "Paul" and I was outright forbidden, FORBIDDEN (with shook fist) from doing Java development.  I think his exact words were "I want to shake these guys up, show them what a real programmer can do"

As for the resume smear, I don't list the mail manager.  I wouldn't even call it a major part of my duties there, only spent a week on it. I do, however, list the numerous successful projects.

And that 60% increase came in handy when I moved on and my new firm (whose policy is to match or beat prior pay-rate) asked for paystubs as proof of salary.

Take a look at the exception code again. He was referring to the (probably Alex-obfuscated) class name, not "smearing" you or your profession.
 

 

Take a look at the comments.

"That said I would have outright refused no matter what they offered. No need for a resume stain like that! ". Stain, smear, meh.
 

Anonymous:

Alex Papadimoulis:

Paul tried to explain this again the Lead Java Engineer, saying that his portion isn't Java-based and doesn't throw Java exceptions. The Lead Java Engineer didn't buy it;

Are we getting the whole story? A whole Java development team couldn't tell the difference between a .NET a Java exception message? I'd guess more likely is that they were accusing his service of returning bad data that caused the exception.

 

Oh, because they couldn't possibly respond to bad data by failing gracefully. </sarcasm>

 

Anonymous:

"This pen is red."
"No it's not. It's blue."

THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!!!

 

You win the intarwebs.

 

Pap:

http://content.ytmnd.com/content/a/2/2/a224551a525ebf5e30cedf1f4ae16b99.gif

 That, that, that can't be real. Can it?

 
captcha: "giggity" as in "Someone, somewhere is all giggity over BG girls."
 

I think one of the WTFs is that a C# programmer wouldn't feel they could pick up Java in a heartbeat.

(Sorry, Paul...I do feel for you anyway) 

Anonymous:

I think one of the WTFs is that a C# programmer wouldn't feel they could pick up Java in a heartbeat.

(Sorry, Paul...I do feel for you anyway) 

To Paul:

Just curious: assuming you weren't mandated off of using Java, was it that you couldn't pick up Java at all, or (just guessing more likely) that you were concerned about picking up the usual subtle intricacies of a new language on a critical project?

I know my first try at something new usually begets a retro look, and a "WTF was I thinking when I did that?"

Anonymous:

I'm "Paul" and I was outright forbidden, FORBIDDEN (with shook fist) from doing Java development.  I think his exact words were "I want to shake these guys up, show them what a real programmer can do"

As for the resume smear, I don't list the mail manager.  I wouldn't even call it a major part of my duties there, only spent a week on it. I do, however, list the numerous successful projects.

And that 60% increase came in handy when I moved on and my new firm (whose policy is to match or beat prior pay-rate) asked for paystubs as proof of salary.

I should have read all the posts before calling you an ass hole. Well, looks like I am. Oh well, nothing new there. 

 

fmobus:

Then tell me Paul... Are you still engaged with Executive VP's daughter?

Lord, no.  Dropped that the instant he had a fight with my boss.

Good thing I timed it like that, too.  He asked to have me fired.  By then I had proved my worth and was kept.

Also, it was very clearly blame for directly throwing the exception that brought the system down, not bad data (in fact I didn't return any data).  The fault ended up being a very bad architecture decision.  They learned exactly how bad it is to allow hundreds of people to run reports that take minutes apiece on a non-replicated instance of the database

Argh those pesky exceptions that keep getting thrown....

btw if you follow the exception trail further than what is shown (the hey an error occurred message) you'd end up at the line of code in which java bean was causing it....

 kudos to FIL for not asking him to stick around....

Anonymous:

fmobus:

Then tell me Paul... Are you still engaged with Executive VP's daughter?

Lord, no.  Dropped that the instant he had a fight with my boss.

Good thing I timed it like that, too.  He asked to have me fired.  By then I had proved my worth and was kept.

Also, it was very clearly blame for directly throwing the exception that brought the system down, not bad data (in fact I didn't return any data).  The fault ended up being a very bad architecture decision.  They learned exactly how bad it is to allow hundreds of people to run reports that take minutes apiece on a non-replicated instance of the database

 

When you say "he" are you referring to your fiance, or the Executive VP?

BUT!

 

Did he get the girl?  If so, is awkward to attend functions with said Father-in-law? 

 

"Paul"? 

one last thought: the last person who touched the project (in anyway shape or form) is the cause of the problems.  Even if you logged in to the test server last and ran the application it's still your bug.  I've seen this sooooooooooo many times it's ridiculous.

I think it is more likely this:

<> 

 http://www.finanznachrichten.de/nachrichten-2005-11/artikel-1979177.asp

<> because of the whole day and upgrade stuff.

 

An acquaintence works for a company that makes (among other stuff) network libraries- they put it in the domain: java.net.xxx (gotta be a WTF in the making)

fmobus:

Then tell me Paul... Are you still engaged with Executive VP's daughter?

That's rather personal ... perhaps you mean "engaged to [her]"

Propositions, er, prepositions make English fun ...

Alex Papadimoulis:

In the Preliminary Failure Report, a Senior Java Programmer laid the blame on an exception being thrown by Paul's system. It looked something like this:

java.lang.NullPointerException


    at java.io.Stream.ctor()


    at java.net.HttpRequest.GetResponseStream()


    at com.exchange.java.application.MailManager.getResponse()


    at com.exchange.java.application.MailManager.sendMail(string recipi ...


    at com.exchange.java.application.ActionHandler.failure(string message)


    ... 

Obviously a problem in the .net part of the system. 

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

I think one of the WTFs is that a C# programmer wouldn't feel they could pick up Java in a heartbeat.

(Sorry, Paul...I do feel for you anyway) 

To Paul:

Just curious: assuming you weren't mandated off of using Java, was it that you couldn't pick up Java at all, or (just guessing more likely) that you were concerned about picking up the usual subtle intricacies of a new language on a critical project?

I know my first try at something new usually begets a retro look, and a "WTF was I thinking when I did that?"

To Snow Man: Assuming you didn't read the post (and several quotes of it) where "Paul" mentioned that he was, in fact, mandated off of using Java... 

Making a .NET application throw a Java-style exception to avoid blame for shutting down the stock market then ditching out before the next version got pushed into production with code that nobody else in your organization can support?  Given yesterday's ranking-and-rating scale, I'd definitely peg that as a 4 - "Now That's a Neat Trick!"

Anonymous:

fmobus:

Then tell me Paul... Are you still engaged with Executive VP's daughter?

Lord, no.  Dropped that the instant he had a fight with my boss.

Good thing I timed it like that, too.  He asked to have me fired.  By then I had proved my worth and was kept.

Also, it was very clearly blame for directly throwing the exception that brought the system down, not bad data (in fact I didn't return any data).  The fault ended up being a very bad architecture decision.  They learned exactly how bad it is to allow hundreds of people to run reports that take minutes apiece on a non-replicated instance of the database

 so...  the vp got what he wanted, too.  ;-)
 

This gives me the strange desire to add (and use) a bunch of classes to my C# applications following the java.* heigharchy, throwing Java-named exceptions (wrapping the C# ones). Bundle it all up in an opaque module, and then sic it on some hapless developer pals. Double the fun if half the app is in java anyway with some sort of interop, so the bughunt spents its time on that side of the fence.

 

As much as cross-language, cross-team developers like to point fingers at one another, in this large-scale, high-priority environment the developer is not at fault in any way--even if their code sucks.... A system that can bring down the NYSE should be thoughly QA'd (for features, load, capacity, stress, etc) and run in parallel before becoming the primary system. I'd place the blame on the QA leads and whoever greenlighted this thing without proper testing.... Even the "single QA Engineer" that was let go, what did he do that was so bad? Unless he marked his tests as "passed" without actually performning them, several times over, I don't see how you could pin this kind of failure on a single person.... Clearly there's politics involved, but it sucks for that poor QA guy.... 

-Me