The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

ammoQ · 2006-09-29 Reply Admin

Alex Papadimoulis:
Talk about customer service! Josh's company really makes sure that Customer #7742's order date is ... well ... Customer #7742's order date ...
If .Fields("CUST_NUM") = "7742" Then
    dtmOrderPlaced = dtmOrderPlaced
End If

This one is called "poor man's conditional breakpoint".

2006-09-29 Reply Admin

great idea - though this does take away some sidebar fodder.

savar · 2006-09-29 Reply Admin

yayyyyy!!

code WTFs -- lots of them!

i guess i'll have to stop complaining. what am i going to do with my time now?

2006-09-29 Reply Admin

Alex Papadimoulis:

private final static String twentyspaces = "                         ";

Shouldn't that be twentySomethingSpaces?

captcha: awesomeness. Just like today's WTF!

2006-09-29 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Alex Papadimoulis:
private final static String twentyspaces = "                         ";
Shouldn't that be twentySomethingSpaces?

captcha: awesomeness. Just like today's WTF!

twentyFiveSpaces. I'm guessing the requirements changed to require more spaces, but they didn't feel like changing the variable name everywhere it's used.

Volmarias · 2006-09-29 Reply Admin

Ah, brillant. It's been a while since we've had a delightful smorgasbord of code snippets. These are all fortunately more hillarious than horrid.

I particularly like how Sunday is Admin day. I suppose they decided that it would be more empowering than Casual Fridays.

2006-09-29 Reply Admin

Alex Papadimoulis:

If .Fields("CUST_NUM") = "7742" Then
    dtmOrderPlaced = dtmOrderPlaced
End If

This looks to me like the developer just needed a place to stick a breakpoint so he could start stepping through the code when it got to customer #7742, so he could figure out why it was failing for that customer. At least, that's why *I've* written code like this.

BradC · 2006-09-29 Reply Admin

Alex Papadimoulis:
I'm sure a lot of you would have mocked Josh's collegue for having a constant named COMMA. Ha! Who's laughing now?
#define COMMA "|"

Beautiful in its simple WTF'ery.

Probably this should be something like

#define DELIMITER "|"

merreborn · 2006-09-29 Reply Admin

Alex Papadimoulis:
lSend = IIf(lSend = True, True, False)

In a loosely typed language, this could actually have an effect similar to

ISend = (bool) ISend

no? e.g., if ISend is actually (int)14, the 'wtf' line of code would convert it to a (bool)true, correct?

 

2006-09-29 Reply Admin

Alex Papadimoulis:

// This instance of OPParcelObj is owned by an instance of 
// OPParcelArray that is associated with an instance of 
// OPCustThread which owns an instance of the parcel 
// processor which is the processor needed to process 
// this parcel.

... which is part of the house that Jack built?

(Captcha: Chocobot. Mmmm....)

Colin McGuigan · 2006-09-29 Reply Admin

MakeCum reminds me of one of my earlier efforts, when I had to work on a fund accrual generation system, or the FAG system, which consisted of FAG customers, FAG products, FAG rates, etc...

Ghost Ware Wizard · 2006-09-29 Reply Admin

My Favorite:

if (cust = "Wal-Mart")

order date := dateFromEDI

ship date := dateFromEDI - (dayof week(today)) + day of week

end if

so when you get to day 1, usually monday what happens?

R.Flowers · 2006-09-29 Reply Admin

Alex Papadimoulis:

F.S. noticed that Australian airline JetStar is very careful about ensuring visitors are sent to the proper page ...

if ((version=="NS") || (version=="IE")) 

{ 

  if (version=="NS") 

    /* NS URL */ 

    window.location="/skylights/cgi-bin/skylights.cgi"; 

  else 

    /* IE URL */ 

    window.location="/skylights/cgi-bin/skylights.cgi"; 

} 

  else 

  /* OTHER URL */ 

  window.location="/skylights/cgi-bin/skylights.cgi";

Let's be kind and assume the missing comment is something like:

/* I'll get back to this later - in a hurry! */

2006-09-29 Reply Admin

Alex Papadimoulis:
Matt Spicer was in the middle of a VB6 to C# conversion projection and stumbled across this next snippet. He decided to not bring this line of code to the new project ...
lSend = IIf(lSend = True, True, False)

Now, now, that's perfectly explainable.  You've got to account for if ISend == FileNotFound when you're converting from "robust" Boolean to "boring" Boolean values.

2006-09-29 Reply Admin

ammoQ:
Alex Papadimoulis:
Talk about customer service! Josh's company really makes sure that Customer #7742's order date is ... well ... Customer #7742's order date ...
If .Fields("CUST_NUM") = "7742" Then
    dtmOrderPlaced = dtmOrderPlaced
End If
This one is called "poor man's conditional breakpoint".

Placing a non-conditional breakpoint under the if is significantly faster than placing a conditional breakpoint in the code if this is in a loop that gets executed a bunch of times (at least this was true in VS.NET 2003).

firedup · 2006-09-29 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Alex Papadimoulis:
Matt Spicer was in the middle of a VB6 to C# conversion projection and stumbled across this next snippet. He decided to not bring this line of code to the new project ...
lSend = IIf(lSend = True, True, False)
Now, now, that's perfectly explainable. You've got to account for if ISend == FileNotFound when you're converting from "robust" Boolean to "boring" Boolean values.

Nice!

firedup · 2006-09-29 Reply Admin

BradC:
Alex Papadimoulis:
I'm sure a lot of you would have mocked Josh's collegue for having a constant named COMMA. Ha! Who's laughing now?
#define COMMA "|"
Beautiful in its simple WTF'ery.
Probably this should be something like
#define DELIMITER "|"

A few projects back I worked with a girl 3 months out of school. We had some coding style rules, one of which was 'descriptive variable names'. Instead of, as you suggest, "DELIMITER", she used something like: "THE_CHARACTER_THAT_SEPARATES_FIELDS_IN_THE_PARAMETER_STRING".

2006-09-29 Reply Admin

Sunday is admin day is pure genius.

I can't believe I haven't seen that anywhere, before; you can bet I'm going to start using it.

2006-09-29 Reply Admin

Please try to keep Coded Smorgasbord submissions small and no more than eight lines of readable code.

So as long as the code is not readable, any length is ok...

pjsson · 2006-09-29 Reply Admin

Volmarias:
I particularly like how Sunday is Admin day. I suppose they decided that it would be more empowering than Casual Fridays.

I guess no regular users will use the application on Sundays, so it is safe to assume that anyone using the application on a Sunday is an admin. At least until some user figures out if he changes the date of the PC clock to Sunday then you will get full admin privileges.

2006-09-29 Reply Admin

Or even better, the system I worked on named by the Marketing Wonks:

CRP

Had us laughing for an hour since we definitely had the fastest CRP around

2006-09-29 Reply Admin

Alex Papadimoulis:

lSend = IIf(lSend = True, True, False)

Of course, this is useful.

Imagine what would happen if the value of lSend equals FileNotFound!

2006-09-29 Reply Admin

merreborn:
Alex Papadimoulis:
lSend = IIf(lSend = True, True, False)
In a loosely typed language, this could actually have an effect similar to
ISend = (bool) ISend
no? e.g., if ISend is actually (int)14, the 'wtf' line of code would convert it to a (bool)true, correct?

See, this is *why* such code is wtf :)

If ISend is actually (int) 14, then that line of code would convert it to a (bool)false. Because it compares ISend = True, instead of just using ISend as a conditional. And they're not going to be equal.

marvin_rabbit · 2006-09-29 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Alex Papadimoulis:
private final static String twentyspaces = "                         ";
Shouldn't that be twentySomethingSpaces?

I'm guessing that the extra spaces were from Alex's anonymisation. We wouldn't want top-secret company info leaking out.

2006-09-29 Reply Admin

Alex Papadimoulis:
I'm sure a lot of you would have mocked Josh's collegue for having a constant named COMMA. Ha! Who's laughing now?
#define COMMA "|" 

Hmmm That's not soooo bad, I mean:

Boss: Write a module that handles .csv files (comma separated values)

Programmer: Ok

[A few days later]

Boss: Ok, here is a .csv file to try your module:

File: data;moredata;another data; etc

Programmer: .....

[More days later]

Boss: the client sent this file, almost like the ones we'll use in production

Second File: data-moredata-another data- etc.

And so on...

The easiest solution is to #define COMMA

Now I dare all of you to tellme that this never ever happened to you...

Captcha: captcha: captcha: captcha.............

Rank Amateur · 2006-09-29 Reply Admin

Alex Papadimoulis:

F.S. noticed that Australian airline JetStar is very careful about ensuring visitors are sent to the proper page ...

if ((version=="NS") || (version=="IE")) 
{ 
  if (version=="NS") 
    /* NS URL */ 
    window.location="/skylights/cgi-bin/skylights.cgi"; 
  else 
    /* IE URL */ 
    window.location="/skylights/cgi-bin/skylights.cgi"; 
} 
  else 
  /* OTHER URL */ 
  window.location="/skylights/cgi-bin/skylights.cgi";

I'm outraged. What about Opera? You can't have Opera browsers going to 
/skylights/cgi-bin/skylights.cgi! Clearly you have to direct them to 
/skylights/cgi-bin/skylights.cgi! This is browser discrimination!
--Rank

2006-09-29 Reply Admin

How many of you counted the spaces? :)

cconroy · 2006-09-29 Reply Admin

Alex Papadimoulis:
For those of you with a maturity level greater than "14 years old", this next snippet probably won't be for you. Thankfully, Brian Samson isn't one of those people ..
public class MakeCum {

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    ...
    CLArgParser clap = new CLArgParser(clargs);

    boolean err = clap.doStdArgs(args);

    if (err) {
      System.out.println("Usage: MakeCum ");
      System.out.println(clap.getStdArgsDescription());
      return;
    }
...}
Ah yes, that class has it all: MakeCum, STD Arguments, and even the Clap makes an appearance! And who would have thought a class that did nothing but "convert a set of binned counts to cumulative counts" could be so fun.

Can... hardly... keep... a... straight... face... (All that's missing is a "catch (ValueTransitionException valTrEx) {}" block; then I would have lost it.)

I used to try to avoid the "cum" abbreviation whenever possible, but app I'm currently working on has "cumQty" variables all over the place, so I've gotten pretty desensitized to it. Now I have much more ~~stamina~~ tolerance for its usage.

2006-09-29 Reply Admin

pjsson:

Volmarias:
I particularly like how Sunday is Admin day. I suppose they decided that it would be more empowering than Casual Fridays.

I guess no regular users will use the application on Sundays, so it is safe to assume that anyone using the application on a Sunday is an admin. At least until some user figures out if he changes the date of the PC clock to Sunday then you will get full admin privileges.

I interpret it as, anyone working on Sunday must need to get work done, and doesn't have time to screw around with potential permission issues, or getting hold of an admin to grant him permissions.

(Our non-admin users do not have the privilege to change the clock, so, we don't have to worry about the problem you describe. We only have to worry about them coming in on Sundays.)

2006-09-29 Reply Admin

Man, it's good to see some nice code WTF's! This is the stuff that just makes your day.

2006-09-29 Reply Admin

On a really basic intellectual level, programming is about coming up with elegant ways to describe things that happen. Remember, always name it what it's *for*, and *why it exists* not what exactly it does! Otherwise, why bother with any kind of structured high-level programming?

Reed

BradC:
Alex Papadimoulis:
I'm sure a lot of you would have mocked Josh's collegue for having a constant named COMMA. Ha! Who's laughing now?
#define COMMA "|"
Beautiful in its simple WTF'ery.
Probably this should be something like
#define DELIMITER "|"

Pro

2006-09-29 Reply Admin

I always wanted to create a help desk system called "My Pants".

Support: "Hmm, I've never heard of that. Let me search my pants and see what I can find."

Support: "I'm sorry, My Pants is down, so I can't answer your question."

Support: "I seem to recall seeing something about that in My Pants."

The 14 year old humor possibilities are endless!

Jeff S · 2006-09-29 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Sunday is admin day is pure genius.
I can't believe I haven't seen that anywhere, before; you can bet I'm going to start using it.

Don't forget what the Bible says ... "On the 7th day, the hackers shall rest."

Bravo, Alex! Best post in a long, long time .... thanks for giving me some good laughs on a busy Friday afternoon !

Jojosh_the_Pi · 2006-09-29 Reply Admin

Alex Papadimoulis:

int doctrackId = Convert.ToInt32("0");  //wtf!!

Maybe the programmer was concerned the int would be initialized with 64 bits, so he used this to try to specify a 32 bit integer, thus conserving memory.

How many comments the last few months have speculated The Daily WTF was running out of material? Ha!

drdamour · 2006-09-29 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
merreborn:

Alex Papadimoulis:
lSend = IIf(lSend = True, True, False)
In a loosely typed language, this could actually have an effect similar to
ISend = (bool) ISend
no? e.g., if ISend is actually (int)14, the 'wtf' line of code would convert it to a (bool)true, correct?
See, this is *why* such code is wtf :)
If ISend is actually (int) 14, then that line of code would convert it to a (bool)false. Because it compares ISend = True, instead of just using ISend as a conditional. And they're not going to be equal.

This is all language dependant, in VB6 some very strange things happen with implicit conversions:

    Dim i As Integer
    i = 14
    Dim x1, x2, x3 As Boolean
    x1 = (i = True)
    x2 = (True = i)
    x3 = i

x1 and x2 will be false, but x3 is true?

but that really is the WTF because that iif is stil useless, could have just been

lSend = (lSend = True)

    Dim i As Integer
    i = 14
    i = (i = True)

i will be 0 in VB6, so it can be passed to a function taht only excepts 0 or -1, at least that's my guess to the reason

ptomblin · 2006-09-29 Reply Admin

"Sunday is admin day" reminds me of when I worked for a large Geographic Information System company. We had a password backdoor for the benefit of the "specialists" that we'd send out to customer sites to help them with their setup and customization. Originally, the secret password was the day of the week spelt backwards (ie "yadnus"). But our specialists couldn't get that right even if they wrote the rule on their hands, so we had to change it to a single asterisk. The specialists actually managed to remember that. Unfortunately they taught it to all the customers, so in 6 years of working there I never saw a customer using a real password.

ptomblin · 2006-09-29 Reply Admin

cconroy:
I used to try to avoid the "cum" abbreviation whenever possible, but app I'm currently working on has "cumQty" variables all over the place, so I've gotten pretty desensitized to it. Now I have much more ~~stamina~~ tolerance for its usage.

According to a lot of spam I get, there is help available if your cumQty isn't high enough.

2006-09-29 Reply Admin

"The Pilot Episode" - Is that a reference to the first ever episode of The X Files?

captcha: poprocks - The first ever candy that rocked.

2006-09-29 Reply Admin

14 year old humour - I work with a database called "MasterData". Not that funny if you are Kiwi like my colleagues, as they pronounce data the American way (First syllable rhymes with bar). However, I'm from the UK and for me it rhymes with day. Try saying it my way, out loud...

ParkinT · 2006-09-29 Reply Admin

What?

No XML ?!

<g>

ParkinT · 2006-09-29 Reply Admin

Anonymous:

14 year old humour - I work with a database called "MasterData". Not that funny if you are Kiwi like my colleagues, as they pronounce data the American way (First syllable rhymes with bar). However, I'm from the UK and for me it rhymes with day. Try saying it my way, out loud...

I imagine it could be worse.

Someone from New England who often adds nonexistent "r" to any word ending in a vowel sound (like idear for idea) !

2006-09-29 Reply Admin

drdamour:
Anonymous:
merreborn:

Alex Papadimoulis:
lSend = IIf(lSend = True, True, False)
In a loosely typed language, this could actually have an effect similar to
ISend = (bool) ISend
no? e.g., if ISend is actually (int)14, the 'wtf' line of code would convert it to a (bool)true, correct?
See, this is *why* such code is wtf :)
If ISend is actually (int) 14, then that line of code would convert it to a (bool)false. Because it compares ISend = True, instead of just using ISend as a conditional. And they're not going to be equal.
This is all language dependant, in VB6 some very strange things happen with implicit conversions:
    Dim i As Integer
    i = 14
    Dim x1, x2, x3 As Boolean
    x1 = (i = True)
    x2 = (True = i)
    x3 = i
x1 and x2 will be false, but x3 is true?
but that really is the WTF because that iif is stil useless, could have just been
lSend = (lSend = True)
    Dim i As Integer
    i = 14
    i = (i = True)
i will be 0 in VB6, so it can be passed to a function taht only excepts 0 or -1, at least that's my guess to the reason

lucky you assigned in he order you id, seeing as you declared 2 variants and 1 boolean:

    x1 = (i = True)
    x3 = (True = i)
    x2 = i

x2 would have been 14

2006-09-29 Reply Admin

This was actually a boolean variable, which defaults to false in VB6. I think the original intent was to change it to true if it wasn't already, but lSend = True would have actually worked.

Oliver Klozoff · 2006-09-29 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
14 year old humour - I work with a database called "MasterData". Not that funny if you are Kiwi like my colleagues, as they pronounce data the American way (First syllable rhymes with bar). However, I'm from the UK and for me it rhymes with day. Try saying it my way, out loud...

What Americans are you talking about? I've always pronounced it "day tuh".

BradC · 2006-09-29 Reply Admin

Anonymous:

I always wanted to create a help desk system called "My Pants".
Support: "Hmm, I've never heard of that. Let me search my pants and see what I can find."
Support: "I'm sorry, My Pants is down, so I can't answer your question."
Support: "I seem to recall seeing something about that in My Pants."
The 14 year old humor possibilities are endless!

Lol, nice.

Support: "Please hold. Sysadmin Julia currently has My Pants down for servicing."

Support: "I'm sorry, My Pants is a little slow today..."

Support: "I'm sorry, I can't seem to find that in My Pants."

2006-09-29 Reply Admin

Re the JetStar example: I don't have a problem with that -- it's expandable/updatable for the future. Harmless at worst; MIPS are cheap. Still funny, though...

Captcha: stfu

2006-09-29 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Alex Papadimoulis:
If .Fields("CUST_NUM") = "7742" Then
    dtmOrderPlaced = dtmOrderPlaced
End If
This looks to me like the developer just needed a place to stick a breakpoint so he could start stepping through the code when it got to customer #7742, so he could figure out why it was failing for that customer. At least, that's why *I've* written code like this.

I do it too, but I don't let anyone know. I clean up after myself. The next thing you know, another drone is poking through the files checked in with my name on it looking for that kind of thing :)

captcha: random. As in random code generation.

2006-09-29 Reply Admin

BradC:
Alex Papadimoulis:
I'm sure a lot of you would have mocked Josh's collegue for having a constant named COMMA. Ha! Who's laughing now?
#define COMMA "|"
Beautiful in its simple WTF'ery.
Probably this should be something like
#define DELIMITER "|"

#define PIPE ","

2006-09-29 Reply Admin

BradC:
Support: "Please hold. Sysadmin Julia currently has My Pants down for servicing."

That's almost /too/ good. Of course, it'd be just the opposite if the following were to happen:

"I'm sorry, there seems to be a problem with My Pants today. We had to bring it down, we've been having almost non-stop core dumps this moring."

2006-09-29 Reply Admin

That is exactly what that is. It should have been removed during a peer review (HA!), but it's definitely not a WTF.

Coded Smorgasbord: The Pilot Episode

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