• Mickey (unregistered)

    This is kind of weak with no offending code to match.

  • nobody (unregistered)

    He should have insisted all support requests be emailed.

  • Wildpeaks (unregistered)

    You're forgetting in the end "and let a real programmer do it" duh

  • Wildpeaks (unregistered) in reply to nobody
    nobody:
    He should have insisted all support requests be emailed.
    :-D
  • (cs)

    Italics ftl

  • dkfal (unregistered)

    well

    i don't get the WTF??

    Is the WTF the fact that the installation guru asked a non-experienced programmer to produce something,

    or

    that the U.S. Government was using MS Mail,

    or

    that the non-experienced programmer was also asked to maintain and support the produced code

    or

    what is it???

    i really really don't get it.

  • The whole office is going on vacation at once? (unregistered) in reply to Mickey

    The Real WTF (tm) is that all 3 of you are gonig on vacation, at once!

  • (cs) in reply to dkfal
    dkfal:
    well

    i don't get the WTF??

    Is the WTF the fact that the installation guru asked a non-experienced programmer to produce something,

    or

    that the U.S. Government was using MS Mail,

    or

    that the non-experienced programmer was also asked to maintain and support the produced code

    or

    what is it???

    i really really don't get it.

    Yes to all!

  • (cs)
    Alex:
    Jake, Derrick and I will be taking next week off.

    Are you planning on blowing anything up this time around?

  • Jonh Robo (unregistered)

    The WTF are the italics! I had to copy and paste the article in a text editor just to read the damned thing.

  • (cs)

    He got sucked into a situation that he wasn't qualified for (and that he claimed to be unqualified for after hearing the whole story). He created an important internal application that barely worked and screwed over everyone involved. Then he got stuck supporting it on someone else's conditions. Where's an Indian call center when you need it.

  • Magus (unregistered) in reply to Jonh Robo
    Jonh Robo:
    The WTF are the italics! I had to copy and paste the article in a text editor just to read the damned thing.

    Get a better font?

  • wiregoat (unregistered) in reply to The whole office is going on vacation at once?
    The whole office is going on vacation at once?:
    The Real WTF (tm) is that all 3 of you are gonig on vacation, at once!

    On the same airplane? Watch out for captcha:ninjas

  • Dustin (unregistered)

    But did you get a pay raise for moving to software development?

  • (cs)

    I distrust any time someone says "so-and-so already designed it, you just need to implement it". Usually means they either (a) don't understand the problem well enough to solve it themselves, or (b) are dodging a bullet.

    You know that mail administrator was laughing his ass off the whole time - he gets credit for "solving" the problem, and some other schmuck gets all the work and ongoing hassle.

  • Jonh Robo (unregistered) in reply to Magus
    Magus:
    Jonh Robo:
    The WTF are the italics! I had to copy and paste the article in a text editor just to read the damned thing.

    Get a better font?

    WTF?

  • Jerry Kindall (unregistered) in reply to Jonh Robo

    WTF: http://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/

  • (cs)

    If you have problems reading stuff just because it's italicized, I'd hate to see what you do with anything that's gasp handwritten.

  • (cs) in reply to Saladin
    Saladin:
    If you have problems reading stuff just because it's italicized, I'd hate to see what you do with anything that's *gasp* handwritten.

    But that is how I secure all my communications. My handwriting is so bad it might as well be encrypted. Maybe it should be used for the captcha text instead. I know, I'll write an app that provides handwritten text by me, printed on paper set on a wooden table and photographed. The perfect captcha every time!.

  • (cs)

    I get it!!!

    You guys forgot to tur your calendars and for you it's still April 1st????

    This is no WTF even the worst attempts I'v seen so far pale into insgnifiance next to this!!!!!

    CAPTCHA:- Crap (yes I'm registered I don't have a Captcha but I figured this deserved one!)

  • dkf (unregistered) in reply to akatherder
    akatherder:
    He got sucked into a situation that he wasn't qualified for (and that he claimed to be unqualified for after hearing the whole story). He created an important internal application that barely worked and screwed over everyone involved. Then he got stuck supporting it on someone else's conditions. Where's an Indian call center when you need it.
    Hah. Remember that these days, everything is just the same in every important detail, except Owen is now called Rajesh and he's in Bangalore. Nothing else is different. Sucky Microsoft mail system? Check. Sucky pseudo programming language? Check. Sucky assignment? Check. Sucky project management? Check. Sucky results for everyone concerned apart from those smart enough to run screaming? Check. The correspondence is spooky!
  • (cs) in reply to Jonh Robo
    Jonh Robo:
    The WTF are the italics! I had to copy and paste the article in a text editor just to read the damned thing.

    Italics are my native language, you insensitive clod!

  • (cs)

    Man, the real WTF is WinBatch. I was an IT intern at a company in undergrad, and instead of rolling their own automated MSIs and pushing them out to users to install software, they used WinBatch to write install scripts. Most of them consisted of copying an install file (sometimes it even WAS an MSI!) from a remote share to a temp directory on the users's desktop, executing the install, and when this couldn't be done silently, actually programming in mouse-clicks to automate the process. This was all a huge WTF itself.

    I was eventually given the task of updating these scripts since they couldn't find anything for me to do, yet they wanted to keep me around. WinBatch itself was a chore to use, and for some awful reason, they made it possible to write GUIs with it. Ugh. I could never find a way to "include" other script files or code snippets within another script, so the code repetition was ridiculous.

  • (cs) in reply to Mickey
    Owen Morgan:
    Through all this experience, I did learn a very valuable lesson. Spec it , design it, code it -- just let someone else support it.

    Mate, this will just make you a really crappy programmer for the rest of your life. If you design it and code it then walk away and let someone else support your crappy product, then you'll never learn how crappy it really is, and you'll keep producing the kind of crappy code that your support guys will submit to this very website.

    Either find a job outside of IT, or find a job in a big department where they have team of actual programmers to do the programming, or get used to the fact that people will want you to do a little coding from time to time. Does this suck? Yes. Is it asking you to do something that you're not really trained to do? Yes. But, mate, that's life.

  • (cs)
  • Automator (unregistered) in reply to mthamil

    You wrote:

    the real WTF is WinBatch.

    Complain about WinBatch as much as you would like, but it usually isn't the tool that is the problem -- it is the person using the tool that causes the WTFs. I agree that WinBatch isn't an install/deployment tool, but it does have its place in some automation environments.

  • Pedant (unregistered) in reply to Tigger
    Tigger:
    Owen Morgan:
    Through all this experience, I did learn a very valuable lesson. Spec it , design it, code it -- just let someone else support it.

    Mate, this will just make you a really crappy programmer for the rest of your life. If you design it and code it then walk away and let someone else support your crappy product, then you'll never learn how crappy it really is, and you'll keep producing the kind of crappy code that your support guys will submit to this very website.

    Either find a job outside of IT, or find a job in a big department where they have team of actual programmers to do the programming, or get used to the fact that people will want you to do a little coding from time to time. Does this suck? Yes. Is it asking you to do something that you're not really trained to do? Yes. But, mate, that's life.

    I agree with this entirely - first proper work project I was on I was doing batch support. There were a lot of things that went wrong with the system & a lot of these things were problems that developers may not think about the first time around but if they had had to support the application, would have known not to do the next time. I just had images of these people rolling from project to project churning out badly tested crap :S

  • (cs) in reply to KattMan
    KattMan:
    Saladin:
    If you have problems reading stuff just because it's italicized, I'd hate to see what you do with anything that's *gasp* handwritten.

    But that is how I secure all my communications. My handwriting is so bad it might as well be encrypted. Maybe it should be used for the captcha text instead. I know, I'll write an app that provides handwritten text by me, printed on paper set on a wooden table and photographed. The perfect captcha every time!.

    Rats, that's exactly what I thought! I only sometimes have a problem with the decryption algorithm.

  • danio (unregistered) in reply to Magus
    Magus:
    Jonh Robo:
    The WTF are the italics! I had to copy and paste the article in a text editor just to read the damned thing.

    Get a better font?

    It's a series of tubes. When you put your message in, it gets in line. When you pull your message out you choose the font. css is a myth. Tahoma is an airline.

  • Profpylons (unregistered) in reply to KattMan
    KattMan:
    Saladin:
    If you have problems reading stuff just because it's italicized, I'd hate to see what you do with anything that's *gasp* handwritten.

    But that is how I secure all my communications. My handwriting is so bad it might as well be encrypted. Maybe it should be used for the captcha text instead. I know, I'll write an app that provides handwritten text by me, printed on paper set on a wooden table and photographed. The perfect captcha every time!.

    Hmmm... I think I can see next year's OMGWTF challenge..! A Handwriting-cum-Wooden-table encryption algorithm.

  • (cs) in reply to akatherder
    akatherder:
    He got sucked into a situation that he wasn't qualified for (and that he claimed to be unqualified for after hearing the whole story). He created an important internal application that barely worked and screwed over everyone involved. Then he got stuck supporting it on someone else's conditions. Where's an Indian call center when you need it.

    I don't know: Where in any government organization can someone just walk in and assign work for somebody else unless first person is line management/supervisor for the second person ?

    I concur of course that Owen was a sucker - inexperienced, stupid and helpful.

  • Hamstray (unregistered)

    the real wtf is that this Owen person's job consists of deleting games from the corporate network. everyone knows that games raise team spirit and enables better integration of newcomers (especially since they are in desperate need of people who have some knowledge of computers).

  • (cs) in reply to Automator
    Automator:
    mthamil:
    the real WTF is WinBatch.
    Complain about WinBatch as much as you would like, but it usually isn't the tool that is the problem -- it is the person using the tool that causes the WTFs. I agree that WinBatch isn't an install/deployment tool, but it does have its place in some automation environments.
    Agreed. I used WinBatch at my last job to automate several mundane tasks, and it was great for what I needed. My favorite was a script that would change my system clock, start/stop the timer on our timekeeping software, then set the clock back to normal :)
  • RIAA (unregistered) in reply to KattMan
    KattMan:
    Saladin:
    If you have problems reading stuff just because it's italicized, I'd hate to see what you do with anything that's *gasp* handwritten.

    But that is how I secure all my communications. My handwriting is so bad it might as well be encrypted. Maybe it should be used for the captcha text instead. I know, I'll write an app that provides handwritten text by me, printed on paper set on a wooden table and photographed. The perfect captcha every time!.

    Hopefully you're not expecting people to circumvent your security mechanism to view your handwriting without prior authorization? Heard of that little acronym, DMCA? At least Alex is covered by "safe harbor".

    captcha:=poindexter; /* quickly grabs for nearest tin foil */

  • Bruce W (unregistered)

    WinBatch still exists? Wow. I remember that thing from 1995 and thought it died by now. Now I feel guilty for laughing at the resume of a guy who listed it in his "Skills" section.

  • JNeumann (unregistered)

    All I can say is that I would never hire this guy. If you can't support your own code, don't code. Code is MEANT to be supported. You build it so it can be supported. If you are unwilling to support it because your design sucks, you blow and should become an admin assistant.

Leave a comment on “Corporate E-mail on the Road, 1990's Style”

Log In or post as a guest

Replying to comment #:

Log Out

« Return to Article