Carol sends us today's nasty bit of code. It does the thing you should never do: serializes by string munging.

public string ToJSON()
{
    double unixTimestamp = ConvertToMillisecondsSinceEpoch(time);
    string JSONString = "{\"type\":\"" + type + "\",\"data\":{";
    foreach (string key in dataDict.Keys)
    {
        string value = dataDict[key].ToString();

        string valueJSONString;
        double valueNumber;
        bool valueBool;

        if (value.Length > 2 && value[0].Equals('(') && value[value.Length - 1].Equals(')')) //tuples
        {
            char[] charArray = value.ToCharArray();
            charArray[0] = '[';
            charArray[charArray.Length - 1] = ']';
            if (charArray[charArray.Length - 2].Equals(','))
                charArray[charArray.Length - 2] = ' ';
            valueJSONString = new string(charArray);
        }
        else if ((value.Length > 1 && value[0].Equals('{') && value[value.Length - 1].Equals('}')) ||
                    (double.TryParse(value, out valueNumber))) //embedded json or numbers
        {
            valueJSONString = value;
        }
        else if (bool.TryParse(value, out valueBool)) //bools
        {
            valueJSONString = value.ToLower();
        }
        else //everything else is a string
        {
            valueJSONString = "\"" + value + "\"";
        }
        JSONString = JSONString + "\"" + key + "\":" + valueJSONString + ",";
    }
    if (dataDict.Count > 0) JSONString = JSONString.Substring(0, JSONString.Length - 1);
    JSONString = JSONString + "},\"time\":" + unixTimestamp.ToString() + "}";
    return JSONString;
}

In the ancient times of the late 90s, Bert worked for a software solutions company. It was the kind of company that other companies hired to do software for them, releasing custom applications for each client. Well, "each" client implies more than one client, but in this company's case, they only had one reliable client.

One day, the client said, "Hey, we have an application we built to handle scheduling helpdesk workers. Can you take a look at it and fix some problems we've got?" Bert's employer said, "Sure, no problem."

Kleyguerth was having a hard time tracking down a bug. A _hasPicked flag was "magically" toggling itself to on. It was a bug introduced in a recent commit, but the commit in question was thousands of lines, and had the helpful comment "Fixed some stuff during the tests".

In several places, the TypeScript code checks a property like so:

Calendars today may be controlled by a standards body, but that's hardly an inherent fact of timekeeping. Dates and times are arbitrary and we structure them to our convenience.

If we rewind to ancient Rome, you had the role of Pontifex Maximus. This was the religious leader of Rome, and since honoring the correct feasts and festivals at the right time was part of the job, it was also the standards body which kept the calendar. It was, ostensibly, not a political position, but there was also no rule that an aspiring politician couldn't hold both that post and a political post, like consul. This was a loophole Julius Caesar ruthlessly exploited; if his political opposition wanted to have an important meeting on a given day, whoops! The signs and portents tell us that we need to have a festival and no work should be done!