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Aankhen has a peer who loves writing Python scripts to automate repetitive tasks. We'll call this person Ernest.
Ernest was pretty proud of some helpers he wrote to help him manage his Docker containers. For example, when he wanted to stop and remove all his running Docker containers, he wrote this script:
Every once in awhile, we get a bit of terrible code, and our submitter also shares, "this isn't called anywhere," which is good, but also bad. Ernesto sends us a function which is called in only one place:
///
/// Shutdown server
///
private void shutdownServer()
{
shutdownServer();
}
We mostly don't pick on bad SQL queries here, because mostly the query optimizer is going to fix whatever is wrong, and the sad reality is that databases are hard to change once they're running; especially legacy databases. But sometimes the code is just so hamster-bowling-backwards that it's worth looking into.
Jim J has been working on a codebase for about 18 months. It's a big, sprawling, messy project, and it has code like this:
Today's snippet from Rich D is short and sweet, and admittedly, not the most TFs of WTFs out there. But it made me chuckle, and sometimes that's all we need. This Java snippet shows us how to delete a file:
if (Files.exists(filePath)) {
Files.deleteIfExists(filePath);
}
Agatha has inherited some Windows Forms code. This particular batch of such code falls into that delightful category of code that's wrong in multiple ways, multiple times. The task here is to disable a few panels worth of controls, based on a condition. Or, since this is in Spanish, "bloquear controles". Let's see how they did it.
private void BloquearControles()
{
bool bolBloquear = SomeConditionTM; // SomeConditionTM = a bunch of stuff. Replaced for clarity.
// Some code. Removed for clarity.
// private System.Windows.Forms.Panel pnlPrincipal;
foreach (Control C in this.pnlPrincipal.Controls)
{
if (C.GetType() == typeof(System.Windows.Forms.TextBox))
{
C.Enabled = bolBloquear;
}
if (C.GetType() == typeof(System.Windows.Forms.ComboBox))
{
C.Enabled = bolBloquear;
}
if (C.GetType() == typeof(System.Windows.Forms.CheckBox))
{
C.Enabled = bolBloquear;
}
if (C.GetType() == typeof(System.Windows.Forms.DateTimePicker))
{
C.Enabled = bolBloquear;
}
if (C.GetType() == typeof(System.Windows.Forms.NumericUpDown))
{
C.Enabled = bolBloquear;
}
}
// private System.Windows.Forms.GroupBox grpProveedor;
foreach (Control C1 in this.grpProveedor.Controls)
{
if (C1.GetType() == typeof(System.Windows.Forms.TextBox))
{
C1.Enabled = bolBloquear;
}
if (C1.GetType() == typeof(System.Windows.Forms.ComboBox))
{
C1.Enabled = bolBloquear;
}
if (C1.GetType() == typeof(System.Windows.Forms.CheckBox))
{
C1.Enabled = bolBloquear;
}
if (C1.GetType() == typeof(System.Windows.Forms.DateTimePicker))
{
C1.Enabled = bolBloquear;
}
if (C1.GetType() == typeof(System.Windows.Forms.NumericUpDown))
{
C1.Enabled = bolBloquear;
}
}
// private System.Windows.Forms.GroupBox grpDescuentoGeneral;
foreach (Control C2 in this.grpDescuentoGeneral.Controls)
{
if (C2.GetType() == typeof(System.Windows.Forms.TextBox))
{
C2.Enabled = bolBloquear;
}
if (C2.GetType() == typeof(System.Windows.Forms.ComboBox))
{
C2.Enabled = bolBloquear;
}
if (C2.GetType() == typeof(System.Windows.Forms.CheckBox))
{
C2.Enabled = bolBloquear;
}
if (C2.GetType() == typeof(System.Windows.Forms.DateTimePicker))
{
C2.Enabled = bolBloquear;
}
if (C2.GetType() == typeof(System.Windows.Forms.NumericUpDown))
{
C2.Enabled = bolBloquear;
}
}
// Some more code. Removed for clarity.
}
Python is (in)famous for its "batteries included" approach to a standard library, but it's not that notable that it has plenty of standard data structures, like dicts. Nor is in surprising that dicts have all sorts of useful methods, like pop, which removes a key from the dict and returns its value.
Because you're here, reading this site, you'll also be unsurprised that this doesn't stop developers from re-implementing that built-in function, badly. Karen sends us this:
Industrial machines are generally accompanied by "Human Machine Interfaces", HMIs. This is industrial slang for a little computerized box you use to control the industrial machine. All the key logic and core functionality and especially the safety functionality is handled at a deeper computer layer in the system. The HMI is just buttons users can push to interact with the machine.
Purchasers of those pieces of industrial equipment often want to customize that user interface. They want to guide users away from functions they don't need, or make their specific workflow clear, or even just brand the UI. This means that the vendor needs to publish an API for their HMI.
I've had the misfortune of working in places which did source-control via comments. Like one place which required that, with each section of code changed, you needed to add a comment with your name, the ticket number, and the reason the change was made. You know, the kind of thing you can just get from your source control service.
In their defense, that policy was invented for mainframe developers and then extended to everyone else, and their source control system was in Visual Source Safe. VSS was a) terrible, and b) a perennial destroyer of history, so maybe they weren't entirely wrong and VSS was the real WTF. I still hated it.