• (cs)

    I think we are all missing the point. Isn't the wtf the fact that the VP called it a final product against the recommendation of the consultant. In my consulting projects I deal with this all the time. As demo code there is nothing wrong with that snippet as a proof of concept, it works to demonstrate functionality. I think this CSOD highlights one of the most irritating facets of this industry, management thinks they know our jobs, salesman think they know our jobs, all because they took a course in pascal in college and maybe once programmed an access database to store their movie collections. That VP saw the Proof of concept and decided it must certainly be a finished product. Promises are made and features offered and all to often we let them get away with it. The real lesson here is not to give your client what appears to be a fully functional mock up, ever. They will assume you are much closer to completion than you actually are.

  • (cs) in reply to Jimmy

    http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3ASMS

  • (cs) in reply to The Anonymous Coward
    The Anonymous Coward:
    Soooo... you don't actually know what an IP is, do you? When a mail server (or anything else) uses a domain name to route traffic, it does so by first using DNS to translate that name into an IP; the IP address is what's actually used to figure out where traffic should go. Domain names are just to assist humans.
    If you ever installed an smtp server, you would understand:

    First thing done with the address is extracting the domain, eg: hotmail.com then a DNS query for it's MX records then connect to it/them.

    Provided the big ISP's servers scapes SMTP's RFC, and they simply understand domain is the MX record itself, then we have part two:

    The receiving smtp serve reads "to:" tag to know which mailbox is the mail supposed to go.

    In most real life scenarios, servers host multiple domains on a single ip, so a mail received to foo@IP_ADDRESS, would only fall on MailerDaemon account, since the domain doesn't specify a server hosted domain.

    On a worse case, it will try to relay (to himself) and produce a recurrent error...

  • (cs) in reply to dnm
    dnm:
    Maximilianop: You can e-mail an IP address just fine. When you send an e-mail, it will try to get its mx record, if one does not exist, it will go to its A record. Or in the case of an IP address, straight to the IP and attempt the delivery.
    You can't do a DNS Query for MX records (or any at all) on an IP, just a domain name. (Think about how much secret information you would get about a NIC if you just DNS queryed it's ip)...
  • Craig (unregistered) in reply to Rik

    Damn! My English 001 TA told me I couldn't quote Wikipedia.

  • (cs) in reply to dkf
    dkf:
    Provided it's to a mailbox that is "local" to the receiving server, it will work. But is the gateway able to do the translation to SMS itself or does it go onward by SMTP internally first? Who knows, but if it is the second, delivering to IP will almost certainly break massively anyway...

    You may be right about Local, supposing the server hosts just this one domain, it would'nt be impossible to think they just did local server boxes.

    SMS fall into a mailbox, which is scanned by a software in charge of sending it to the cellphone.

    So, it will certainly break if the server is not local hosting all boxes (Which in real life is as possible as the sun turning blue)

  • (cs)

    What's the WTF here? A guy got paid a lot of money to do something that somebody thought was complex but turned out to be easy?

    Are we pissed that he's using the e-mail gateways?

    A lot of SMS web apps are written like this. It's convenient, cheap, and much easier than interfacing to a GSM modem. (Not to mention that it would be hard to talk your web host into collocating a GSM modem.)

  • (cs) in reply to Maximilianop
    Maximilianop:
    SMS fall into a mailbox, which is scanned by a software in charge of sending it to the cellphone.

    I would assume that the mail wouldn't ever go into any "mailbox", but that it would get converted to SMS instantly and sent to the SMSC. Depositing it somewhere, then sending it wouldn't really do much good.

    /But I've been unsuccessful in sending myself an SMS this way, so I'm probably wrong.

  • whicker (unregistered) in reply to -j
    -j:
    BBT:
    Welbog:
    TEXT IS NOT A VERB!

    It is now. Language changes- deal with it.

    The witty riposte of illiterates down the centuries!

    Your smurfar is smurfing my smurfer hurt.

  • Aaron (unregistered) in reply to Jimmy
    Jimmy:
    Yeah, that can happen. This looks like IL to C# using Reflector. The original code probably looked something like this:

    The text1 name comes from the compiler also, which does not preserve names of local variables.

    Wrong. Unless there's some sort of code-obfuscation tool being used (in which case it would be total gibberish), variable names ARE preserved, and although many types of instructions translate into the IL "br" (essentially a goto), Reflector has no problem recreating a switch/case/break construct. I just verified this on one of my own release builds; aside from a lot of redundant "this" prefixes, the code came out almost exactly the way it went it.

  • burned (unregistered) in reply to Welbog
    Welbog:
    TEXT IS NOT A VERB!
    That may have been true some years ago, but as the times change, so too does the language (lest if fall by the wayside like Latin).
  • (cs) in reply to Aaron
    Aaron:
    Jimmy:
    Yeah, that can happen. This looks like IL to C# using Reflector. The original code probably looked something like this:

    The text1 name comes from the compiler also, which does not preserve names of local variables.

    Wrong. Unless there's some sort of code-obfuscation tool being used (in which case it would be total gibberish), variable names ARE preserved, and although many types of instructions translate into the IL "br" (essentially a goto), Reflector has no problem recreating a switch/case/break construct. I just verified this on one of my own release builds; aside from a lot of redundant "this" prefixes, the code came out almost exactly the way it went it.

    Variable names are only preserved if they are visible outside the scope of the method.

  • - (unregistered) in reply to BBT
    BBT:
    Welbog:
    TEXT IS NOT A VERB!

    It is now. Language changes- deal with it.

    I bet he still uses the original meaning of "gay" and wonders why people look at him...

  • - (unregistered) in reply to Misha
    Misha:
    So how does a pager work if it isn't a phone? Are you telling me we have an entire wireless network just to support something no one uses anymore?

    [url http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pager]Yes[/url]. It predates mobile phones. In Norway, we closed down that network years ago because people prefered mobile phones.

  • aeternus (unregistered) in reply to Aaron
    Aaron:
    Wrong. Unless there's some sort of code-obfuscation tool being used (in which case it would be total gibberish), variable names ARE preserved, and although many types of instructions translate into the IL "br" (essentially a goto), Reflector has no problem recreating a switch/case/break construct.

    Wrong. Local variable names are NOT preserved, unless you provide reflector with pdb files.

    See: http://www.denisbauer.com/weblog/NETReflectorSupportsReadingPDBFiles.aspx

    And as far as switch construct recreation is concerned, please bear in mind that he might not necessarily use the best decompiler or the latest version.

  • Blame (unregistered) in reply to Welbog
    Welbog:
    TEXT IS NOT A VERB!
    It is these days.
  • (cs) in reply to burned
    burned:
    Welbog:
    TEXT IS NOT A VERB!
    That may have been true some years ago, but as the times change, so too does the language (lest if fall by the wayside like Latin).

    Using texted as a verb is perfectly cromulent. As we evolve, the need for more words arises, and our vocabulary is thusly embiggened.

  • iain'tanenglishmajor (unregistered) in reply to Welbog

    Welbog wrote:

    TEXT IS NOT A VERB!

    But "texting" is a verb. Welcome to the joys of the English language.

  • pinball (unregistered) in reply to Misha
    morry:
    question for pondering: considering how similar (in function) pagers and sms are, how come they can't communicate with each other via some intermediate? Obviously a pager and a cell phone operate on different frequencies and protocols, but how come there's not a phone number you can SMS and it'll send a page, and vice versa?
    You are correct that pagers and cell phones can't communicate directly. Pagers are falling out of use, so don't expect a meshing of the protocols to come into play anytime soon. Having said that however, there are intermediary services in some areas where pager service is still available which will convert between email/SMS/page.
    Misha:
    They can't? I always assumed pagers where just mobile phones without the voice function.
    Pagers and cellphones spawned independently to address different service needs, and as a result, while similar, operate differently. As the cellphone market expanded, people saw that texting could easily be added to the cellular service, and thus paging service started its decline.
    Misha:
    So how does a pager work if it isn't a phone? Are you telling me we have an entire wireless network just to support something no one uses anymore?
    It is still used, but its more of a niche market these days. The best use I see with them is in restaurants to let me know I can get seated.
  • Andrew (unregistered) in reply to Welbog
    Welbog:
    TEXT IS NOT A VERB!

    Quick English lesson for ya: Putting "ing" on the end of a noun makes it a verb.

    http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=gerund

  • darwin (unregistered) in reply to Welbog
    Welbog:
    TEXT IS NOT A VERB!
    If you are correct, then email is not a word at all. Let me write up a letter and send it electronically to Oxford to let them know. While I am at it, I'll be adamant that they remove any of these newfangled terms that have crept into the language over the last, I don't know, 500 years like automobile, airplane, and rocket.
  • Zygo (unregistered) in reply to Misha
    Misha:
    morry:
    question for pondering: considering how similar (in function) pagers and sms are, how come they can't communicate with each other via some intermediate? Obviously a pager and a cell phone operate on different frequencies and protocols, but how come there's not a phone number you can SMS and it'll send a page, and vice versa?

    They can't? I always assumed pagers where just mobile phones without the voice function. But then, having grown up in the mobile age, I've only ever seen a pager on /Scrubs/. I don't think pagers are used at all in Europe/Asia where SMS is ubiquitous, except maybe by emergency workers.

    So how does a pager work if it isn't a phone? Are you telling me we have an entire wireless network just to support something no one uses anymore?

    There are lots more wireless networks out there than you might think.

    Pagers are very different from cell phones - lower bandwidth, much higher transmitter power, and unidirectional communication.

    Basically to operate a pager network you just put a powerful transmitting tower on top of some high object in the city you want to serve, and charge people to transmit a few hundred bits with a unique identifying number at high power. They are very cheap compared to a cellular network, which requires towers strategically placed in roughly the same density as the subscribers so that they can scale up.

    Pagers work in more places than cell phones do, due to the higher power and lower frequency signal which can pass through typical concrete and steel office structures that absorb cell phone signals. The receiving devices don't emit radio signals (other than the usual EMI radiation that all electronic devices do) so they can be used in places where cell phones must be turned off for safety reasons.

    On the other hand, since there is no way for the pager company to know that your pager is on or where it is, pagers don't work outside of the subscriber's home city, and there is no automatic retransmission of any messages that are missed.

    Just to make things confusing there are now two-way pagers and other exotic things. See the Wikipedia article for details...

  • Zygo (unregistered) in reply to Maximilianop
    Maximilianop:
    Ok, sooo how will this even work? All smtp uses email's domain to understad where it's send to ... if you just put the ip of the mail server it would:
    1. Not work due to not finding corresponding mail server
    2. In case I missed the part of SMTP 101 where it's possible to relay to an IP ... how would the receiving server know where to host it into?

    I too want one of this contracts ... being able to make whatever I like not worring about it working and being paid so much...

    RFC282[12] are pretty specific on relaying through IPs. The correct syntax is:

    local-part@[123.45.67.89]

    Note the square brackets. Those are required, and they specify that the MX host is the host with the given IP address. Hopefully that receiving host agrees with you that the IP address is correct for the receiving host, or there will be some kind of delivery problem.

    Some mail software is configured with rules that allow a "bare" IP address to be used. This software is non-compliant with the SMTP specification, or at least it's providing an extension to the SMTP specification. According to SMTP, if I could somehow get the "89" top-level domain, I can have DNS records that look like this:

    $ORIGIN 89. 123.45.67 IN A 192.168.1.1 ; my IP address 123.45.67 IN MX 0 123.45.67.89. ; my host name 123.45.67 IN MX 10 foo.example.com. ; my ISP's MX

    For those who don't read DNS, that means I have a host named "123.45.67.89" (actually "123.45.67.89." since all DNS addresses theoretically end in .) which has the IP address 192.168.1.1.

  • Paul Williams (unregistered) in reply to -j
    -j:
    BBT:
    Welbog:
    TEXT IS NOT A VERB!

    It is now. Language changes- deal with it.

    The witty riposte of illiterates down the centuries!

    Have you ever emailed anyone?

  • Andrew (unregistered) in reply to Welbog
    Welbog:
    TEXT IS NOT A VERB!

    Welcome to the English language. Any word that can be said with a "to" before it, or an "s", "ed" or "ing" after it, is a verb! Yes, let's start verbing everything!

  • BBT (unregistered) in reply to -j
    -j:
    BBT:
    Welbog:
    TEXT IS NOT A VERB!

    It is now. Language changes- deal with it.

    The witty riposte of illiterates down the centuries!

    Don't you mean "se orþanc _______ of _______ geond se gears!" (sorry, the words "riposte" and "illiterates" weren't in the old english dictionary)

  • jbinaz (unregistered) in reply to whicker
    whicker:
    Your smurfar is smurfing my smurfer hurt.

    What marklar would use this marklar as a marklar of marklar?

    (South Park reference for the uninitiated.)

    jbinaz

  • (cs) in reply to pinball
    pinball:
    It is still used, but its more of a niche market these days. The best use I see with them is in restaurants to let me know I can get seated.

    Pagers are still highly used in the IT world, especially for system administrators. A lot of monitoring software hasn't "caught up" to sending SMS instead of pages. More importantly, most companies aren't going to pay your cell phone bill (or spend weeks reimbursing a percentage of it) when they can make you carry around a pager for $10/month.

  • dkfal (unregistered) in reply to -

    Well I am sure that Welbog has had enough, but here it goes.

    Yes, it is a verb nowadays.

    Now let me go back to MMORPGing.

  • Kemp (unregistered) in reply to Zygo
    Zygo:
    The receiving devices don't emit radio signals (other than the usual EMI radiation that all electronic devices do) so they can be used in places where cell phones must be turned off for safety reasons.

    But surely if you send a page then you are transmitting and it thus is dangerous. Wikipedia doesn't help at all for this as in virtually the same sentence it mentions that they operate via radio and that they are used in hospitals were radio transmissions may be dangerous. I point this out mainly as the two-way pagers that are used have to transmit somehow.

  • muhahaha (unregistered) in reply to Kemp
    Kemp:
    But surely if you send a page then you *are* transmitting and it thus is dangerous. Wikipedia doesn't help at all for this as in virtually the same sentence it mentions that they operate via radio and that they are used in hospitals were radio transmissions may be dangerous. I point this out mainly as the two-way pagers that are used have to transmit somehow.
    Yes, if you are sending a page, then you are transmitting. Pagers capable of transmitting must be turned off (or at least the transmiter part of it) in hospitals and similar areas. There are some pagers that are not 2-way, and most 2-ways are configurable to become 1-way (i.e., receive only).
  • Kemp (unregistered) in reply to muhahaha

    Then how are they useful in a hospital? One of the advantages quoted is that they can be used within a hospital to quickly summon staff in an emergency situation, but if you can't send then it seems kinda pointless.

    "I know he's dying, I'm just going to pop outside to page someone to help."

  • pinball (unregistered) in reply to akatherder
    akatherder:
    Pagers are still highly used in the IT world, especially for system administrators. A lot of monitoring software hasn't "caught up" to sending SMS instead of pages. More importantly, most companies aren't going to pay your cell phone bill (or spend weeks reimbursing a percentage of it) when they can make you carry around a pager for $10/month.
    Yep (I happen to be one such system administrator with a pager), this is still a niche market though. I still think the best use of the pager service is to notify me that a table is ready for me when I'm at the restaurant.
  • Kemp (unregistered) in reply to muhahaha

    Then how are they useful in a hospital? One of the advantages quoted is that they can be used within a hospital to quickly summon staff in an emergency situation, but if you can't send then it seems kinda pointless.

    "I know he's dying, I'm just going to pop outside to page someone to help."

  • muhahaha (unregistered) in reply to Kemp
    Kemp:
    Then how are they useful in a hospital? One of the advantages quoted is that they can be used within a hospital to quickly summon staff in an emergency situation, but if you can't send then it seems kinda pointless.

    "I know he's dying, I'm just going to pop outside to page someone to help."

    In these situations, the page isn't taking place from one pager to another pager. The hospital has a paging system setup to send out alerts to the correct individuals. This is usually accomplished by calling the nurse's station and saying "page dr. so-and-so".

  • Juan (unregistered)

    This was sent to me by the "head code monkey" in my company. Being the Operations guy I think in more expansive circles and not so linear. I did not try to figure out why the code is "bad" or "wrong".

    I just had one thought. What is the relationship between the VP of Marketing and the consulting company? And WTF is the VP of Marketing doing on a project that is clearly IT related? Can you say, "KICKBACK".

    So for those you that are wondering why you can't get "gigs" like this it's simple; "its NOT what you know, But WHO you know, and HOW MUCH you grease them".

  • (cs) in reply to Maximilianop
    Maximilianop:
    You can't do a DNS Query for MX records (or any at all) on an IP, just a domain name. (Think about how much secret information you would get about a NIC if you just DNS queryed it's ip)...

    It really bugs me when people who clearly don't know what they're talking about try to act authoratative on a subject.

    You should read RFC 2821, specifically section 4.1.2. You'll see that a literal IP address is perfectly valid as the domain part of a mailbox.

  • (cs) in reply to pinball
    pinball:
    morry:
    question for pondering: considering how similar (in function) pagers and sms are, how come they can't communicate with each other via some intermediate? Obviously a pager and a cell phone operate on different frequencies and protocols, but how come there's not a phone number you can SMS and it'll send a page, and vice versa?
    You are correct that pagers and cell phones can't communicate directly. Pagers are falling out of use, so don't expect a meshing of the protocols to come into play anytime soon. Having said that however, there are intermediary services in some areas where pager service is still available which will convert between email/SMS/page.
    Misha:
    They can't? I always assumed pagers where just mobile phones without the voice function.
    Pagers and cellphones spawned independently to address different service needs, and as a result, while similar, operate differently. As the cellphone market expanded, people saw that texting could easily be added to the cellular service, and thus paging service started its decline.
    Misha:
    So how does a pager work if it isn't a phone? Are you telling me we have an entire wireless network just to support something no one uses anymore?
    It is still used, but its more of a niche market these days. The best use I see with them is in restaurants to let me know I can get seated.

    and even then, the technology used is closer to that of your cordless phone at home than a cell phone/pager. Generally they operate on a digital signal somewhere in the 2.4GHz band and all the transmitter does is send an encoded signal to the receiver. The receiver with the matching encoding then goes beep.

  • [email protected] (unregistered) in reply to -
    -:
    BBT:
    Welbog:
    TEXT IS NOT A VERB!

    It is now. Language changes- deal with it.

    I bet he still uses the original meaning of "gay" and wonders why people look at him...

    I did this when I wrote my "Introduction" letter for my foster family... I looked up "friendly,funny" in a dictionary which did NOT have the "current" meaning of gay...

    Well at least it was caught when the letter was proof read by the agency that send me over there... Otherwise I would have a hard time explaining why I was comming out of a family of 6... ;)

  • (cs) in reply to Zygo
    Zygo:
    RFC282[12] are pretty specific on relaying through IPs. The correct syntax is: 
    local-part@[123.45.67.89]

    Note the square brackets. Those are required, and they specify that the MX host is the host with the given IP address. Hopefully that receiving host agrees with you that the IP address is correct for the receiving host, or there will be some kind of delivery problem.

    Excellent data, I seem to have failed reading the RFC, anyway: the way this contractor used it is incorrect since he doesn't square backet the IP address; thus any RFC compliant relaying server would fail to relay this mails.

  • (cs)

    Oh and in Canada at least, there was at one point pagers by Motorola and Nokia that did operate on the GSM network and were capable of reseiving SMS..nobody bought them :p

  • dontmatter (unregistered) in reply to Maximilianop

    ever heard about reverse DNS lookup?

  • kerch (unregistered)

    Let's hope PhoneNumber is not null, otherwise the guy whose address is [email protected] is gonna get inundated again...

    http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1931904,00.asp

  • Dustin (unregistered) in reply to -j

    "illiterates"???

    That's something bad, isn't it!

    You lookin' for a fight? Are ya?

  • (cs) in reply to byllc

    Ken Arnold and Alex Lam had the absolutely brilliant (<-- actually really smart, not in any way ironic) idea of making a UI experience as unfinished as the code being demonstrated.

    http://wiki.java.net/bin/view/Projects/NapkinLAF

  • dontmatter (unregistered) in reply to Maximilianop
    Maximilianop:
    In most real life scenarios, servers host multiple domains on a single ip, so a mail received to foo@IP_ADDRESS, would only fall on MailerDaemon account, since the domain doesn't specify a server hosted domain.
    My understanding is that it should use the "default" domain for this ip (e.g. the domain that you get from reverse DNS lookup). Not the MailerDeamon. Am I wrong?
  • B (unregistered) in reply to dnm
    dnm:
    Maximilianop: You can e-mail an IP address just fine. When you send an e-mail, it will try to get its mx record, if one does not exist, it will go to its A record. Or in the case of an IP address, straight to the IP and attempt the delivery.

    The way this guy is doing it is not optimal, but if there is a mailserver on that IP and it has a default domain, it'll likely be delivered.

    Er... I wouldn't go to that extend. SMTP (and HTTP, better known) allows for name-based virtual hosting - that is, a given IP can host SMTP services for multiple domains. In which case, the actual domain name used is absolutely essential for the server to figure out which domain a given email is addressed to (whether it is for [email protected] or [email protected]). The SMTP transaction lets the server have this information via the RCPT TO: command. Analogously, a given webserver can host multiple websites, which are differentiated by the HTTP Host: header.

    Not that a major mobile service provider will use a shared SMTP service for their email-to-SMS gateway, but...

    Lastly, the RFC-compliant behaviour is to use:

    emailid@[ip.ad.dre.ss] (note the square brackets)

    to deliver email direct-to-IP-address.

  • dontmatter (unregistered) in reply to Andrew
    Andrew:
    Any word that can be said with a "to" before it, or an "s", "ed" or "ing" after it, is a verb! Yes, let's start verbing everything!
    So "everything" is a verb?
  • (cs) in reply to dontmatter
    dontmatter:
    My understanding is that it should use the "default" domain for this ip (e.g. the domain that you get from reverse DNS lookup). Not the MailerDeamon. Am I wrong?
    Depends on software capabilities and configuration, but "default" domain is mostly considered a bad choice.

    Imagine you the the most secret document ever to "[email protected]". SHOULD it fall into the "default" domain?? No, It should bounce immediately.

  • rgz (unregistered) in reply to Welbog
    Welbog:
    TEXT IS NOT A VERB!

    You don't text!

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