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Admin
I've been speaking like Porky Pig ever since looking at this WTF.
Admin
Reminds me of this site i recently saw:
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?FixBrokenWindows
If a building has 1 broken window, more will follow soon. But if you fix the broken window, the others won't break. In this case the bad design was the first floor of broken windows. All other windows were broken by updating the system.
This is probably the worst ever WTF ever seen, can someone prove me wrong? :P
Admin
An infinite number of monkeys called. They want their typewriters back.
Admin
Tough bananas, monkeys! We near-sourced your jobs to the author of this WTF. We are saving millions!
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
Admin
yeah, so the entire linked page is a WTF, as its anchor premise about broken windows leading to more broken windows was never very well researched and was debunked not long after that article appeared in print.
it persists because it seems like such an appealing idea, and we can remember it and tell others and feel wicked smaht.
But, it's wrong.
Admin
Hmmm .. an infinite number of monkeys would require an infinite number of bananas and an infinite number of phones to call, not to mention an infinite number of typerwriters (though I believe they use word processors these days.) Well, unless they doubled up on typerwriters, than they would only need oo/2 typerwriters.
Infinity is about the size of the temporary table created by all of those left joins.
Admin
Admin
I'm glad that at least someone understands the beauty and elegance of fifth normal form.
Admin
The REAL WTF is that on line 8 it should be CnPrAl.CnPrAlAttr1_LINK = CnPrAlAttr.CnPrAlAttr1_LINK instead of CnPrAl.CnPrAlAttr_LINK = CnPrAlAttr.CnPrAlAttr_LINK.
Gotcha! For one second you really believed that I actually read that block of characters didn't you?
Every project has some dirt in it. Usually I try to design my software as elegant as possible, then I start implementing it, and when I'm "90 %" done, I discover that my elegant design does not work for the other 10% of the requested features. What I like to do in those cases is to put all the dirt (hard-to-understand code, workaround hacks etc.) in a single source file, a single method, or preferably a single statement. This keeps the rest (95+%) of the code clean. Unfortunately that single dirty piece tends to become the most important part of the software, so it needs heavy documentation.
So, let me try to defend this piece of dirt: maybe (MAYBE!) this is the only part of the software that looks like this, and its purpose is to keep the rest of the code clean. :-S
Admin
Getting good money for writing good software is much more fun though than getting paid for re-writing bad software.
Admin
No way. If you (generally quite simple) database code looks like this, there is no way the other parts of the software are written cleanly, well documented and follow any coding standards at all.
Admin
You truly are an evil man...
Admin
*pock* *ouch* -- that was the sound I made after dropped off my chair while uncontrolling screaming and laughing during reading your comment ... :-D
Admin
(Job) security through obscurity...
hey wait, did you guys just saw that??? something moved from the image!!!
Admin
Get(Headache)
{If
read(post)=true
}
Admin
Note: I know very little about programming
Either
Get(Headache)
{If
Read(Post)=True
}
Or
ReturnValue(SystemMalfunction.PleaseRestartLife)
{If
Read(Post)=False
}
Admin
Great thing is the split between networkingJoin and networkingFromClause. Keeps it readable.
Admin
*swings the cluebat of effective refactoring*
** CLONK! **
Hopefully that nugget of 'advice' will never see the light of day again ...
Admin
What? You'll just check the diffs between revisions in source control, and see who checked in the broken code and broke the automated build. It'll be no more than 15 minutes before your peers are snickering behind your back.
... I could amost write that with a straight face :-) ...
</font></font></font></font>
Admin
And i hoped my headache doesn't get worse...
Admin
i would rather be homeless than work on a database and queries like these. from my experience though the shameless people who create these horrible things move on to be really successful managers. not good ones, just really successful.
Admin
I know, your goggles do nothing, and all that.
But after looking at yesterday's related post, it's bone-headedly obvious what went on here - original programmer didn't understand foreign keys, and didn't realize that you could have multiple tables referencing the same table/field key in a foreign key relationship.
Understanding this weakness really makes refactoring the queries a SNAP, folks.
Add some tabs, a little indenting salt, and you should have these queries whittled down by 50% or more in a few afternoons, even if it's a decent sized app.
Perhaps it's just for fun, but the amount of whining that goes on around here sometimes is just staggering. If you can't handle technology, why are you in a technology field?
Having watched this site for a while, it seems to me that most WTFs come from simple ignorance. Missing a core concept can cause all sorts of strange workarounds. I've seen tinyurl links sent by email used as a security system (using the "don't post links to pages and google won't find 'em" method of securing a web-based app) because the developer just didn't understand authentication methods like .htaccess.
This is most definitely a WTF. But not a particularly hard one to correct, as long as you're willing to use the TAB key...
Admin
I know how this came to be: it must have been part of a job-creation scheme for unemployed morons.
Excuse me while I get some relief by banging my head against a concrete wall...
Admin
Maybe I can clarify this. Having some experience with MS Access, I can say with near 100% certainty that this clause has been generated by a query builder. It looks very much like the output of the visual query builder of MS Access. It would also explain the excessive use of brackets and lack of indentation.
If I'm right, I would love to see the graphical representation of this query with all the tables and their relations. It would probably look like a web made by a spider on a bad acid trip.
This is truly the stuff of nightmares.
Admin
It's said that views where forbidden. So this query failled to avoid Views.
Just because this WTF is clearly a view of infinity.
OK, I got it : this is a math or physics research app ? They where trying to create a black hole on server disks ?
CAPTCHA : perfection (yeah it's perfect for me ;))
Admin
I get the feeling that this code is made for stresstesting the database...
But anyways, how can you assume that a VB-Monkey understands SQL? :D
//captcha chocobot
Admin
http://www.cannabis.net/weblife.html
Admin
Given that there were, as I recall from the initial posting, no foreign key constraints, at least for Cn, a representation of the database itself would probably just be a bunch of boxes with no lines joining them. The query wouldn't be too difficult to do manually, tbh. I'd have done it already but it's posted as an image.
The stuff of nightmares it might well be, but it shouldn't be too hard to refactor into something vaguely sensible if they have grasped such concepts as "unit tests". I wouldn't bet my salary on that last premise, though.
This is what happens when people with little or no database knowledge design databases. It's not uncommon.
Simon
Admin
Judging from these images, acid is relatively harmless. I'd rather say the author of the query overdosed his morning coffee. A lot.
Admin
Boy is that optimism. What you'll get from your boss is "with the complexity of those things you showed me, it goes to prove just how much we already have invested in the system, we can't just throw it all away because some new johnny hotshot is in town."
Admin
I really need to cut back on the Cokes at work...
CAPTCHA: giggity?!
Admin
That second bit is a thing of beauty. Albeit retarded, in that let's ram our head into the wall 400000 times kind of way.
All of a sudden some of the strange stuff I see here seems so logical and correct. Amazing how all things are relative. ;)
Admin
WOW, that's actually worse than the sql statements in the hotel system from hell... I'm impressed... speachless... and I thought you should be taking really strong drugs to produce queries that use the resultset of another query and so on nested up to 10 levels and looking like utter s**t like this one:
<FONT size=2>SELECT DISTINCTROW [f z tgab 0101 1 1].Zahlungsart, Format(Format([BR],"Standard"),"@@@@@@@@@@@@@") AS BE
FROM [f z tgab 0101 1 1];
where the query with such a nice name like [f z tgab 0101 1 1] looks like this:
</FONT><FONT size=2>SELECT DISTINCTROW [f z tgab 0101 2 1 4 1].MAINKAT, IIf([Dauer]=5,"-------------------------",IIf([Dauer]=6,"Summe Kat. " & [MAINKAT],IIf([Dauer]=7,"=========================",""))) AS KAT, IIf([Dauer]=5,"-------------",IIf([Dauer]=6,Format([f z tgab 0101 2 1 4 1].[BR],"Standard"),IIf([Dauer]=7,"=============",""))) AS BR, 4 AS SORT, [Z Tage].Dauer AS SORT2, Recipient
FROM [Z Tage], [f z tgab 0101 2 1 4 1]
WHERE ((([Z Tage].Dauer)=5 Or ([Z Tage].Dauer)=6 Or ([Z Tage].Dauer)=7 Or ([Z Tage].Dauer)=8));</FONT>
I guess I was wrong... this is far worse... and what the hell means CnPrBsAddr ? Used to dbase and 8-letter filenames or just too lazy to type more and this way optimizing the labour of writing queryes?
What's curious is that each table has fields starting with the tablename making absolutely no sense in the sql: <FONT color=#0000ff>CnPrBsAdr</FONT>.<FONT color=#008000>CnPrBsAdr</FONT><FONT color=#000000>Ph</FONT>_1_Link ... WTF? It's cryptic enough so why type it twice.. it wouldn't be that bad if they at least put an underscore between the prefix and real field name...
I don't know who designed the database but his/her superiors should be fired immediately for letting this happen... oh well
Admin
Abysmal column naming follows on logically from the abysmal table naming. The lack of readable aliases on the joined tables is another data point for the join being autogenerated, I think.
If <font face="Courier New">CnPrBsAdr</font> is, as I suspect, some sort of address table, then it might like to be named "<font face="Courier New">address</font>". And <font face="Courier New">CnPrBsAdrPh</font> is probably a phone numbers table. "<font face="Courier New">telephone</font>" might be a good name. Then one would have something like "<font face="Courier New">address.telephone_1_LINK</font>". OF course, the use of "LINK" is a bit wank, one might want to rename that to "id", both in the suffix bit of foreign keys, and renamed down to "id" on the primary key. So then we'd have something like "<font face="Courier New">left join telephone as t1 on address.telephone_1_id = t1.id</font>", which might be grokable.
I think the snippet you posted was far worse. This is merely bad naming and bad database design allied with autogenerated queries. Yours makes my head esplode.
Simon
Admin
<FONT face=Tahoma size=2>mommy... make the bad people stop, please... it hurts!!!!</FONT>
<FONT face=Tahoma size=2>and to the person who stated that you don't find stuff like this in "SQL for Dummies", I would suggest that you look in the little-read companion volume, "SQL for Donkey-Fvcking Morons"</FONT>
<FONT face=Tahoma size=2>sometimes, there are things that make you go "hmmm...", then there are things that turn you into a slobbering creature just this side of a Tasmanian devil -- I'll be here in the corner, gnawing the flesh from the bones of my latest victim if anyone needs me...</FONT>
<FONT face=Tahoma size=2></FONT>
<FONT face=Tahoma size=2>captcha "perfection"... oh, the irony!</FONT>
Admin
This probaby is code which ensures the programmer will have another job at the same company later on.
Admin
If so, I'm going to describe it as a new antipattern - the One Great Pile of Dirt.
Somehow though, I doubt it.
Admin
Now I know why I am not a DBA - I could never write something as beautiful as this...
Admin
Hmmm ... the DATABASE designer didn't understand foreign keys.
HOUSTON .... WE HAVE A PROBLEM
Restructing a database doesn't really affect the code much at all, right? Best case scenario is the code explicitly uses stored procedures, so only they need to be completely rewritten.
Admin
http://www.cannabis.net/weblife.html[/quote]
Now that's complete BS. Those drugs affect the HUMAN brain by binding to certain neurological receptor sites in the brain, due to the chemical bonds that are the exact (to the nanometer) distance as human endorphins. They would have no affect on a spider's brain.
Admin
OK, I missed yesterday's WTF, so let me se that first....
Gaaaah. That's.... that's... and today's is a query on that? I'm afraid to look...
reads the first part of today's WTF
OK, that's pretty awful, but sadly, I've seen this sort of... ahem... naming system all too often, though usually it occurs by accident, in a handful of variables which got 're-purposed' at some point but never renamed. I would hope that this is the case here; the idea of seeing it done systematically and intentionally is rather disturbing.
reads the second query
Holy Sh(1)t. That's... and that with the... and the...
vomit
If this is typical of the rest of the code, and works on the database described yesterday, then I would rather maintain half a meg of unsourced binaries that was originally compiled in 1972 and runs on a highly unstable (and also unsourced) emulator for an unfamiliar architecture which is itself running in another emulator, than deal with that. Death is too good for the person who wrote this.
Admin
I did a project for some Canadians, where something similar arised.
You'd have a company in region X, but they were closer to an city in region Y, so they wanted to be considered being in region Y for the search screen when they were actually located in region X.
But... I didn't do what was stated above, I created a table where they could select what regions a company served.
Back to today's wtf.. this is child porn of programming, I say rope him and send him back to school or a mentorship.
Admin
One job search Web site that I used had Kamloops and Kelowna considered to be in the same area, but considered Salmon Arm as miscellaneous. Salmon Arm is between the two (less than two hours from each) by major highways and what is probably the most commonly-used route. I contacted them, and they adjusted it.
Sincerely,Gene Wirchenko
Admin
As long as you drink less than five or so litres of coke a day, or four or so litres of pepsi a day, or six or so cups of strong coffee, you will probably be fine. Caffeine as consumed in normal society is quite safe (source: http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/cu/CU22.html), but it is possible that the programmer was part of a study about the effects of speed-style caffeine usage on behaviour (high-dose mainlining of amphetamines causes terrible psychosis, but low-dose usage like meth was mostly used before it was banned, and like amphetamine and methylphenidate are today, is about as safe as coffee).
Admin
Also, it is known to me that many psychoactive substances, caffeine and nicotine definitely and possibly others, developed as natural insecticides: Considering that many artificial substances used as insecticides, such as organophosphates, do have the effect of inhibiting normal brain functioning in insects, why should natural insecticides such as Caffeine or Nicotine not affect brain functioning in insects despite their known psychoactivity.
Lastly, studies using SSRIs have shown that many invertebrates, most notably shellfish, use serotonin to regulate their sex lives and it has been shown that
, serotonin being one of those that N,N-Diethyl Lysergamide (top left web) and Mescaline (top right web) target, so saying that there would be no reason to expect an effect on a spider's brain, or asserting by fiat that is completely stupid.Admin
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