Comment On The Student Registration System at WTF University

Apparently the "logic" to guess pages is very complex. After all, that's a lot of if statements...

moderated by ammoQ first?

    wow

All these WTFU posts make me want to get a WTFU t-shirt off thinkgeek......

 

CAPTCHA = hacker

I think I should join the WTF-University, just to send in a new WTF every single day

You misspelled "Eric" throughout the post.

No one is named "Enric."  That would be silly.

Holy bleeding eyeballs Batman!!!

By the way did we already cover "../activity-42/reproces2.jsp" or was that "../activity-42/reprosess.jsp"?

Where do I sign up?!
Sad thing is, maintaining this kind of nightmare in university is probably a good training for the 'real world' we see every day here...

Aha....This is precisely what 'artificial intelligence' was required. A few lines of LISP would have replaced all those 'thouzens of dines of stubid gode'.

Anonymous:

Aha....This is precisely what 'artificial intelligence' was required. A few lines of LISP would have replaced all those 'thouzens of dines of stubid gode'.

A decent levenshtein or soundex function prolly woulda done just as well.

Admittedly, typo matching is actually kinda hard to get right.

Oh, and of course the basic concept of this page (why wouldn't you just fix the developers' typos?) -- and system, for that matter -- is a WTF.

redirecting them to a random page would make for much more efficient code

I'm fairly certain that entire process could be solved recursively with some XML.

SilverBullet, HO!

And the golden rule at WTF University is, "Programming is Easy".

See, all programming is nothing more than a bunch of if-else constructs to handle every possibility in the known universe.

And you thought it was hard!

I think this could actually be the holy grail for QA.  You don't actually have to test your code, you just write a function that corrects all possible mistakes.

 private final String doRedirect_a5( String page )
  {
    if ( page.equals("a5-intro.jsp") )
      return "../activity-5/a5-introduction.jsp";

    else if ( page.equals("a5-introduction.jsp") )
      return "../activity-5/a5-introduction.jsp";

    else if ( page.equals("a5-intorduction.jsp") )
      return "../activity-5/a5-introduction.jsp";

    /* snipped a whole bunch of cases */

    else if ( page.startsWith("a5-task-2-3") )
      return "../tasks/r.jsp?redir=../activity-5/task-2-4.jsp";

    else if ( page.startsWith("a5-task-3-3") )
      return "../tasks/r.jsp?redir=../activity-5/task3/taskC.jsp";

    /* snipped a whole bunch more cases */
    
    else if ( page.equals("conclusions-5.jsp") )
      return "../conclusions3/incident5.jsp";

    else if ( page.equals("conclusions-specific-5.jsp") )
      return "../conclusions3/incident5.jsp";

    else if ( page.equals("conclusions-general-5.jsp") )
      return "../conclusions3/incident5.jsp";

    else
      return "../activity-5/process.jsp";

I love linear search algorithms, nice and inefficient. At my work there is a 2000+ line switch statement.....
}

The "central servlet", done correctly, is not necessarily a WTF. They call it the front controller design pattern.

Clearly the solution is to run the mispelled page name through a soundex and then redirect them to the first page that matches in your pagename & soundex table.

(No, not really - I'd much rather cattle prod any developer who deploys their changes to production without event smoke testing them)

Holy IF statements batman ... I'm guessing either no knowledgable students attend these universities, or they'd rather work at McD's to pay tuition fees than get a scholarship at the cost of trying to maintain these monstronsities.

Anonymous:

Aha....This is precisely what 'artificial intelligence' was required. A few lines of LISP would have replaced all those 'thouzens of dines of stubid gode'.

But then this page might awaken one day and decide to take over the world :)

I guess we should be thankful these folks never heard of STORRAY...or actual databases of strings...or arrays...or *gasp* fixing the broken links in the first place.

Then again, imagine the cursors needed for the stored proc they'd have written to scan through all these cases?  The power-drain from the disk-motors alone might cause a blackout (it's summer (here) and it's hot)

The photo bears an unholy resemblence to Cary Quadrangle at Purdue University.


I see "equals", "startsWith" and "endsWith" but no "isKindaInTheMiddleOf". WTF?

Anonymous:

redirecting them to a random page would make for much more efficient code

Not a bad idea... maybe insert a promot to ask "is this the page you were expecting?" and if no is selected... just pick a new random page. Web 4.0 here we come!

kipthegreat:

You misspelled "Eric" throughout the post.

No one is named "Enric."  That would be silly.

HAHA i almost shot water through my nose reading that one

The WTFs this week just have me pointing and shouting "SEE! SEE! Look! Proof!" lol. It's nice to see that what I think isn't outrageous. Code like this is worse than:

bool bleck;
if (foo == true)
{
    bleck = true;
} else {
    bleck = false;
}

I mean, c'mon... The Enric shoulda known that the system was fubar when the makefile wasn't named "new-new-new-new7-BUILDSITE2354-real-final-final-final-im-being-totally-serial-you-guys"

Ford351-4V:

The photo bears an unholy resemblence to Cary Quadrangle at Purdue University.

I see "equals", "startsWith" and "endsWith" but no "isKindaInTheMiddleOf". WTF?

Beautiful !!!

if ("WTF".isKindaInTheMiddleOf("MTWTF")) { ... }

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

Aha....This is precisely what 'artificial intelligence' was required. A few lines of LISP would have replaced all those 'thouzens of dines of stubid gode'.

But then this page might awaken one day and decide to take over the world :)

I think it would be way to busy trying to find someone to put it out its misery.

Alex Papadimoulis:

    if ( page.equals("a5-intro.jsp") )

      return "../activity-5/a5-introduction.jsp";



    else if ( page.equals("a5-introduction.jsp") )

      return "../activity-5/a5-introduction.jsp";



    else if ( page.equals("a5-intorduction.jsp") )

      return "../activity-5/a5-introduction.jsp";

Ha ha, I love it.

I don't know about you, but I think this project will provide a GREAT intorduction to CS.

hash tables

loop around an array



private final String doRedirect(/*enum of some type*/ e)

{

    static String[] redirectTable=...; // populate array

    return redirectTable[e];

}

Those come to mind without even thinking about it. And I'm not even a CS student!!!!

I'd quit the job, afraid that a future employer might find out I had something to do with it.

ammoQ:

The "central servlet", done correctly, is not necessarily a WTF. They call it the front controller design pattern.

I guess this would be the "Spelling Correcter Front Controller" design pattern. Reinstating it as a WTF.
?

Is it just me, or does WTFU bear an uncanny resemblance to Harvard Yard? So let's see...it copies its CS slides from Princeton, its architecture from Harvard, and apparently its student registration system from Rutgers. Or for the latter, with equivalent plausibility, vice versa.

So when are the root servers going to correct my amazon.co and amazon.co, typos? This is a must-implement feature!


(Side note: server side correction of misspellings is for the weak of mind and spirit. Their pages should be broken and their backs lashed until they actually take the time to test their stupuid pages and type the damned names the right way.)

Ford351-4V:

The photo bears an unholy resemblence to Cary Quadrangle at Purdue University.

No way. I sayed in CQ SE for a year and a half. No fancy curved window tops, and certainly no fancy entrance like you can kind of see in the middle of the building on the left. Also, they're much too clean and brick-colored. CQ was lighter I think, and covered in blue jean lint from the dryers.

I never said it was a happy year and a half.

I just lost my will to live :(

CQ East 3rd Floor '74-'75

CQ SE 2nd Floor '75-'76

Riverview Apts. heavy drinking after that makes the memory fuzzy.

"[copied]... its student registration system from Rutgers"
LOL!  I love a good dig at Rutgers.  (NJIT grad).

I was wondering how many people would say that the picture looks like a particular school. To me, it looks like the quad at UIUC.

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

redirecting them to a random page would make for much more efficient code

Not a bad idea... maybe insert a promot to ask "is this the page you were expecting?" and if no is selected... just pick a new random page. Web 4.0 here we come!

Web 4.0...

So good we even skipped a number!

Anonymous:

kipthegreat:

You misspelled "Eric" throughout the post.

No one is named "Enric."  That would be silly.

HAHA i almost shot water through my nose reading that one

Hmmm .. I wonder which one is 'our' Enric.

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=enric&sa=N&tab=wi

Better yet, will the real Paula Bean please stand up?

http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&q=%22paula+bean%22

 

I was wondering how many people would say that the picture looks like a
particular school. To me, it looks like the quad at UIUC.


Most definatally UIUC, I recognize the trees, and the building.  Mostly the trees.

Anonymous:

kipthegreat:

You misspelled "Eric" throughout the post.

No one is named "Enric."  That would be silly.

HAHA i almost shot water through my nose reading that one

I try my best.

Anonymous:

Is it just me, or does WTFU bear an uncanny resemblance to Harvard Yard? So let's see...it copies its CS slides from Princeton, its architecture from Harvard, and apparently its student registration system from Rutgers. Or for the latter, with equivalent plausibility, vice versa.

let's all be honest here. no one went to Harvard.  THAT is the quad at my community college

Metaphone would probably be better than soundex, and a trie would be better than a lot of if/else statements.



No, wait.  Why not make the devs fix their typos?





Why the flush of 'academic' wtfs?  A  subtle admission that Alex has found the bottom of the barrel?

Alex Papadimoulis:

Enric's job didn't seem to hard, either. All he had to do maintain the Student Registration System.

Why not just make Enric, or Eric or Ernic or Erinc, just pass these up to the name resolution logic page hoping it could point directly to the real person. Anyway, why not make him and several others create the SRS instead of maintaining it? Ok, let some maintain it while a new, much better app is in progress.

Unless of course the WTFU management has no idea what's going on inside their system and just "needed it to work".

I'm looking through some photos online now, and I'm fairly sure (although not convinced) that it's UIUC.  Good quad for a stock photo -- it's beautiful, especially in the summer.  The engineering campus was starting to look pretty good when I departed, too.

/misses UIUC

Bus Raker:

Anonymous:

kipthegreat:

You misspelled "Eric" throughout the post.

No one is named "Enric."  That would be silly.

HAHA i almost shot water through my nose reading that one

Hmmm .. I wonder which one is 'our' Enric.

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=enric&sa=N&tab=wi

Better yet, will the real Paula Bean please stand up?

http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&q=%22paula+bean%22

 

I think she's the one...

Alex Papadimoulis:

And really, who better to build and maintain a production application than those armed with only a few programming classes under their belt?

I've worked at a couple jobs where HR and the hiring managers followed this credo.

Alex,

For thuh luv ov G-d, wil u pleez instal an awtomatic spel-chekr trigerd by the Post butn?

In generul, I don't mynd thuh typos, butt (this week in partikular) it just maaks us reeders of TDWTF look iliterat to be mispelleeng thuh bashes uv thuh incompitans uv uthurs.

Thank ewe.

Bus Raker:

Hmmm .. I wonder which one is 'our' Enric.

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=enric&sa=N&tab=wi

This one?

http://griho.udl.es/catala/equip/colab/naval.html

ammoQ:

The "central servlet", done correctly, is not necessarily a WTF. They call it the front controller design pattern.

In fact, Apache Struts provides a front controller..... the bad thing is the implementation :D

I'm pretty sure that's not UIUC... the similarities are striking, but that architecture was very popular for universities for the better part of a century. Looking at some photos to remind myself of details, I think the placement of the buildings and little stuff like the exact style of the windows and chimneys don't match any pictures I can find.

I'd be interested to know what it was though.

Anonymous:

I love linear search algorithms, nice and inefficient.  At my work there is a 2000+ line switch statement.....

What language/compiler do you use that implements a switch statement as a big linear if/else clause?