Comment On Lord of the Blogs

The person that wrote this blog would probably write a text editor like this.

ARE YOU TRYING TO HIT THE UPPERCASE A BUTTON?
yes|no

ARE YOU TRYING TO THIS THE UPPERCASE B BUTTON?
yes|no

Interrupts? What are those?

Holy. Jesus.

Yaos:

The person that wrote this blog would probably write a text editor like this.

ARE YOU TRYING TO HIT THE UPPERCASE A BUTTON?
yes|no

ARE YOU TRYING TO THIS THE UPPERCASE B BUTTON?
yes|no

Interrupts? What are those?

MS wrote an entire OS feature that way It's called Windows Vista UAC

hehe, I'd also stop showing up at work..

This reads like a joke, but I have the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that it isn't.

...

The most infuriating part is that there are dozens if not hundreds of prominent blog "engines"/backends that people actually thought through and designed well, many of which are even free (in both senses of the word). Why anyone would continue to use this hodgepodge of horseshit is so far beyond me it gives me a headache just to think about it.

I know CAPTCHA posting is frowned upon, but this is too good: I got "vern", and the system does sound like something Ernest P. Worrell might have designed.

Someone install Wordpress, quick!

While I would like to send condolences to Rob on the death of his sanity, I suddenly feel much better about my job.

Rob should not complain. He actually had good documentation that apparently was kept up to date when new information was received. If only all software was this well documented.

And that's the only good thing I can say about this.

Needs more MS Access.

Needs more wooden table.

James:

This reads like a joke, but I have the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that it isn't.

...

The most infuriating part is that there are dozens if not hundreds of prominent blog "engines"/backends that people actually thought through and designed well, many of which are even free (in both senses of the word). Why anyone would continue to use this hodgepodge of horseshit is so far beyond me it gives me a headache just to think about it.

I know CAPTCHA posting is frowned upon, but this is too good: I got "vern", and the system does sound like something Ernest P. Worrell might have designed.

Rob here,

It's not a joke, and it wasn't free.

However, it's a corporate thing, a decision that may have been good several years ago but isn't now, and changing it would involve too much paperwork.

MS Ninja:

Needs more MS Access.

And some XML.

And possibly a wooden table.

No quack.

That about cover it?

</sarcasm>

However, it's a corporate thing, a decision that may have been good several years ago but isn't now, and changing it would involve too much paperwork.

Ah yes...I'm sure we've all been there before. Paperwork in triplicate requiring God's signature I'm sure.

...

At least it *was* documented by somebody who had to actually maintain it.

I don't know which would be worse:
- Showing up and finding no documentation, or...
- Showing up and only finding the manual, which only describes how everything is *supposed* to work.

Assuming the users don't know these secrets, they must be totally baffled by the formatting changes that occur once they publish to the mysterious machine. "Wow, that's some crazy software that takes a picture of my table and inserts it back into the post".

That is one mother of a WTF. It pains me to think about it, especially since we had a pretty WTF content management system at my last place of work. This one takes the cake though.

I like how he depends on an obvious security vulnerability to get his job done.

a:

Yaos:

The person that wrote this blog would probably write a text editor like this.

ARE YOU TRYING TO HIT THE UPPERCASE A BUTTON?
yes|no

ARE YOU TRYING TO THIS THE UPPERCASE B BUTTON?
yes|no

Interrupts? What are those?

MS wrote an entire OS feature that way It's called Windows Vista UAC

This is only tangentially related, but by far my favorite Vista UAC-ism is the warnings that a UAC prompt is about to be generated.

I wanted to delete the program directory for a program I had uninstalled that hadn't actually bothered to remove any of its data. So I browse to Program Files, and delete the folder. This causes the following:

1. Are you sure you want to delete this folder? [Yes]
2. Windows will prompt you to confirm this deletion. Do you want to continue? [Continue]
3. Cancel or allow? [Allow]

I can't help but think that similar thinking to that "you're about to be asked to allow this action you've already OKed once" created the blog software generated.

When a user is ready to publish his blog post, she simply goes to “set post status” and selects “published” from the drop down list.

The real WTF is the gender change of the user in question in the instructions.

ben_:

I like how he depends on an obvious security vulnerability to get his job done.

That's an added-on feature. It costs extra.

ImaSwitch:

When a user is ready to publish his blog post, she simply goes to “set post status” and selects “published” from the drop down list.

The real WTF is the gender change of the user in question in the instructions.

Well done sir. Nice catch.

Was the company name in the last paragraph supposed to be anonymized?

ImaSwitch:

When a user is ready to publish his blog post, she simply goes to “set post status” and selects “published” from the drop down list.

The real WTF is the gender change of the user in question in the instructions.

Maybe there's some arbitrary third person who comes by with the sole function of selecting "published".

Grumpy:

Was the company name in the last paragraph supposed to be anonymized?

I don't think so, since Akamai is one of the biggest mirror-server farms on the 'net.

This is because the CSS on the live site is different from the CSS on the blog server, so everything will look different.

Er.... synch up the CSS files?

ImaSwitch:

When a user is ready to publish his blog post, she simply goes to “set post status” and selects “published” from the drop down list.

The real WTF is the gender change of the user in question in the instructions.

I see that type of writing all the time - better than the "he/she"; "his/her"; "s/he"; "(s)he" alternatives that get used.

OtherMichael:

This is because the CSS on the live site is different from the CSS on the blog server, so everything will look different.

Er.... synch up the CSS files?

Nah... too much paperwork...

Licky Lindsay:

Needs more wooden table.

AHHAHAHAHA.... dying... laughing...

MS Ninja:

Needs more MS Access.

Needs more cow bell

Licky Lindsay:

Needs more wooden table.

No, you see, they've already streamlined past that stage. It used to be that HTML tables had to be printed out, photographed and reinserted into the blog entries, but now they've got this cutting-edge enterprise-class feature called "Print Screen" that lets them make an image of it without actually printing it!

Seeahmess? What is this see-a-mess?

But seriously, it sounds like all they needed was something like this.

That and a course in website design, of course, and perhaps some basics to drill in the idea that computers are meant to make work /easier/, not harder.

"Rob":

However, it's a corporate thing, a decision that may have been good several years ago but isn't now, and changing it would involve too much paperwork.

That's why you don't ask, you just do. Push a new improved system into place and document how to use it as part of a "service maintenance release to address critical security issues".

Problem solved and no one asks questions - anyone who does you simply point to the bit about critical security issues, which from the way this system appears to be designed would be honest. After all, you have a legal requirement to protect the company from security vulernabilities (and the truth about how you fixed them if being honest prevents it).

Then, pretend everything continues to work the old way and sit back and enjoy all the new free time.

original post:

...Something probably got “lost” along the way...

Yeah, the editor's patience, at that point.

Xepol:

"Rob":

However, it's a corporate thing, a decision that may have been good several years ago but isn't now, and changing it would involve too much paperwork.

That's why you don't ask, you just do. Push a new improved system into place and document how to use it as part of a "service maintenance release to address critical security issues".

Problem solved and no one asks questions - anyone who does you simply point to the bit about critical security issues, which from the way this system appears to be designed would be honest. After all, you have a legal requirement to protect the company from security vulernabilities (and the truth about how you fixed them if being honest prevents it).

Then, pretend everything continues to work the old way and sit back and enjoy all the new free time.

Bravo! Thats what I would do! :D overnight preferably.

captcha: slashbot - not

Funny MS Ninja and Vista comment. This poor guy obviously cracked after years of dealing with imbeciles and resorted to this.
Ha Ha...dreadlocks captcha!

Even as some will complain about the missing code... Nice story. I had a good laugh already when reading about the ROR. The Accounts & Passwords stuff was a nice introductory triple-WTF, although it's stuff we readers have seen all too often (and some of these things actually remind me of my workplace sigh).

When reading "Publishing Articles", I had a serious headdesk moment and felt dizzy for a while. Even if this metaphor is overused around here: This must be the blog system from Hell. And the thought of being the "Global Editor" for this... thing... makes me wonder whether being tormented with a pitchfork for all eternity is really that bad. "Troubleshooting" then provided a nice lead-out with auxiliary WTFs. Aristotle would have been proud.

Kev:

ImaSwitch:

When a user is ready to publish his blog post, she simply goes to “set post status” and selects “published” from the drop down list.

The real WTF is the gender change of the user in question in the instructions.

I see that type of writing all the time - better than the "he/she"; "his/her"; "s/he"; "(s)he" alternatives that get used.

When it comes to gender-unspecific pronouns, I like "s/h/it".

Atrophy:

MS Ninja:

Needs more MS Access.

And some XML.

And possibly a wooden table.

No quack.

That about cover it?

</sarcasm>

Brillant!

ImaSwitch:

When a user is ready to publish his blog post, she simply goes to “set post status” and selects “published” from the drop down list.

The real WTF is the gender change of the user in question in the instructions.

That's not a WTF: It's a feature!

Xepol:

"Rob":

However, it's a corporate thing, a decision that may have been good several years ago but isn't now, and changing it would involve too much paperwork.

That's why you don't ask, you just do. Push a new improved system into place and document how to use it as part of a "service maintenance release to address critical security issues".

Problem solved and no one asks questions - anyone who does you simply point to the bit about critical security issues, which from the way this system appears to be designed would be honest. After all, you have a legal requirement to protect the company from security vulernabilities (and the truth about how you fixed them if being honest prevents it).

Then, pretend everything continues to work the old way and sit back and enjoy all the new free time.

Haha, if only it were that easy. The server I work directly on is in my office and is managed by a guy I barely know. He looks after the software and stuff. The server it gets pushed to is in another country, managed by somebody I only know by name. And it does a lot of different things. The server after that is outside both my country and company, and I wouldn't even know who to talk to.

Long story short, it's a long chain that's completely out of my, and everybody else's hands. :(

That's what I'd call a reaaaaaaaally "Distributed System" and a company that likes to enable Collaboration as much as possible...

"Rob"?....sure you mean "Alex" 80)

"Rob":

Haha, if only it were that easy. The server I work directly on is in my office and is managed by a guy I barely know. He looks after the software and stuff. The server it gets pushed to is in another country, managed by somebody I only know by name. And it does a lot of different things. The server after that is outside both my country and company, and I wouldn't even know who to talk to.

Shit. Steal an old PC from out in the hall somewhere, install a web server and some open source blogging software, tell everybody to start using that instead.

Kev:

ImaSwitch:

The real WTF is the gender change of the user in question in the instructions.

I see that type of writing all the time - better than the "he/she"; "his/her"; "s/he"; "(s)he" alternatives that get used.

I suspect this may be a (overly) politically correct americanism? I much prefer "they".

Proposal of new gender-neutral pronouns:

hos = he or she
hoh = him or her
hohs = his or hers

Would save so much time writing!

SamP:

Proposal of new gender-neutral pronouns:

hos = he or she
hoh = him or her
hohs = his or hers

Would save so much time writing!

Bah. You have to train everyone what these weird new (and ugly) words are. Far easier to just loosen up on they/their to allow it as a gender-neutral singular as well as a plural.

'hohs' is horseshit. Not to mention that 'hos' already has far more mindshare as the derogatory ebonics word for prostitutes (or women in general, depending on your speaker).

Xepol:

...pretend everything continues to work the old way and sit back and enjoy all the new free time.

I know someone who is doing this at this very moment. Part of his job, a big part, is to collate a bunch of data and create some nice graphs for the weekly reports that get done. I helped him with a script to deal with the tedious data collection and graph generation. Now he just runs the script and adds some comments to the report about the weekly data and then surfs the net for 2 hours.
Everyone knows he has used scripts to speed up his work but no one has realised a 4 hour job now takes about 10 minutes.

amandahugginkiss:

SamP:

Proposal of new gender-neutral pronouns:

hos = he or she
hoh = him or her
hohs = his or hers

Would save so much time writing!

Bah. You have to train everyone what these weird new (and ugly) words are. Far easier to just loosen up on they/their to allow it as a gender-neutral singular as well as a plural.

'hohs' is horseshit. Not to mention that 'hos' already has far more mindshare as the derogatory ebonics word for prostitutes (or women in general, depending on your speaker).

Whoosh.

The real wtf was that this entry was an awesome wtf. I've seen it happen! Propped so hard.

I would issue all the users with a digital camera, they could then write thier blogs in Word (or whatever), take a picture of the screen and then post that.

Would save a lot of hassle.