The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

We Get Spam

by Remy Porter in Feature Articles on 2026-01-27

I recognize that our comments system here leaves much to be desired, especially with regards to the spam filter. Lots of good comments get moderated, an annoying quantity of spam gets through. But today, I want to take a moment to talk about some of the spam we get. Because we get a lot. And since most of you never see it as most of it hits our moderation queue, I don't think you can appreciate how weird some of the spam we get is. Formatting preserved, but links- where they were present- stripped.

We'll start with one of my "favorites", the sycophant:

4 comments - Last comment @ 07:51

Threading the Needle in a Haystack of Files

by Remy Porter in CodeSOD on 2026-01-26

Today we return to Jessica (previously), who still suffers under Windows Forms. But it's not all Windows Forms. There's also random CLI tools kicking around. CLI tools which should really be designed to run as a service,

Let's start with the Main method of this particular tool.

13 comments - Last comment @ 04:21

Some Southern Exposure

by Lyle Seaman in Error'd on 2026-01-23

Never let it be said that we at TDWTF dish it out and can't take it.

Morgan immediately dished "I'm not sure what date my delivery will arrive but I will {PlanToBeAtHomeWhenItDoes}. "

5 comments - Last comment @ 2026-01-23

Validation Trimmed Away

by Remy Porter in CodeSOD on 2026-01-22

Grace sends us, in her words, "the function that validates the data from the signup form for a cursed application."

It's more than one function, but there are certainly some clearly cursed aspects of the whole thing.

23 comments - Last comment @ 2026-01-23

NUrll

by Remy Porter in CodeSOD on 2026-01-21

Grace was tracking down some production failures, which put her on the path to inspecting a lot of URLs in requests. And that put her onto this blob of code:

app.get(
    (
      [
        "/api/ddm/getProjectList",
        ":dueDate",
        ":status",
        ":userAssignedId",
        ":managerID",
        ":clientID",
        ":projectHeaderID",
        ":tagId",
        ":companyId",
        ":clientGroup",
        ":isDefault",
        ":dateRange",
        ":dateToFilter",
        ":tagIds",
        ":statusIds",
        ":repeatValues",
        ":engagementID?",
        ":completionDate?"
      ]
      .join( "/" )
    ),
    ddmDboardCtrl.getProjectList
);

11 comments - Last comment @ 2026-01-21

Well Timed Double Checking

by Remy Porter in CodeSOD on 2026-01-20

Last week's out of order logging reminded Adam R of a similar bug he encountered once.

The log files looked like this:

13 comments - Last comment @ 2026-01-22

Marking Territory

by Ellis Morning in Feature Articles on 2026-01-19

There's something about hierarchical arrangements that makes top-down interference utterly irresistible to many managers and executives. Writers may also experience similar strife with their editors, a phenomenon Robert Heinlein described with the perfect metaphor: "After he pees in it himself, he likes the flavor much better."

Sometimes, a leader leverages their hard-won wisdom and experience to steer a project onto a better path. But, all too often, someone's imagined wisdom and starving ego force a perfectly good train off the rails.

18 comments - Last comment @ 2026-01-26

Chicken Feed

by Lyle Seaman in Error'd on 2026-01-16

"Zero balance due now!" shouted davethepirate "To be fair, I had disputed a charge on a bill and they finally relented which should have actually resulted in them owing me $1.01, but I'm happy with the win." I'm sure yarr.

23 comments - Last comment @ 2026-01-21