The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

Well if you use the Frist one too much, it will break right?

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

Please let this story be made up, please let this story be made up, please let this story be made up, please let this story be made up, please let this story be made up, please let this story be made up, please let this story be made up, please let this story be made up, please let this story be made up, please let this story be made up, please let this story be made up, please let this story be made up, please let this story be made up.

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

public static string FemaleLogic(object data) { string result = "Yes"; if (Logic(data)) { result = "No"; } return result; }

spezialpfusch · 2013-12-18 Reply Admin

MightyM:
Please let this story be made up, please let this story be made up, please let this story be made up, please let this story be made up, please let this story be made up, please let this story be made up, please let this story be made up, please let this story be made up, please let this story be made up, please let this story be made up, please let this story be made up, please let this story be made up, please let this story be made up.

Now you have successfully worn out this sentence. ;-)

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

Bas:
public static string FemaleLogic(object data) { return "No"; }

FTFY

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

Cheradenine Zakalwe:
public static string FemaleLogic(object data) {

This is fun because women are not part of our group, and are inferior and illogical.

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

Is it any wonder there aren't many women in tech?

spezialpfusch · 2013-12-18 Reply Admin

Technology seems to be the continuation of puberty by other means. ;-)

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

TRWTF is that he failed to get the joke and couldn't wait to tell his geek-buddies about what happened.

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

All the same, 2300 lines? How long did Craig leave the anonymous intern alone to play with the code?

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

Well assuming that all 2300 lines contained simply iterations of the two shown, then it could have been done in an hour by coding a generator...

Of cause I do not know what would have been more WTF, coding it by hand or specifically crating a program to make it....

Yazeran

Plan: To go to Mars one day with a hammer

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

Explain!:
Cheradenine Zakalwe:
public static string FemaleLogic(object data) {

This is fun because women are not part of our group, and are inferior and illogical.

http://www.hastac.org/blogs/ari-schlesinger/2013/11/26/feminism-and-programming-languages - for those who seem not to get it. (Apparently Akismet didn't like me making this a link.)

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

CAPTCHA: nulla

I was gonna write something funny, but the captcha just says it all for this thread :)

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

Craig's intern is Wally?

[image]

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

Umm ... yes, it is funny, but this is about an intern. He is new to programming ... I thought it is a principle of this site, to show the perversions that IT professionals create, not to make fun of newbies?

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

Anon:
Is it any wonder there aren't many women in tech?

right or wrong, the President's daughter is a rare female in tech

flukus · 2013-12-18 Reply Admin

I don't know why this is a WTF, methods do get slower the more you use them.

I was profiling an application the other day and 1 method was taking up 50% of the wall time. I duplicated the method and updated half the references and got it down to 25%.

I could of improved performance further but I think I struck the right balance between performance and maintainability. Plus, it's nice to have something like that up my sleeve when performance reviews roll around again.

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

I guess that intern wasn't the C#-est tack in the box.

CAPTCHA: nulla Hip-hop variation of "null".

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

Marcel:
http://www.hastac.org/blogs/ari-schlesinger/2013/11/26/feminism-and-programming-languages - for those who seem not to get it. (Apparently Akismet didn't like me making this a link.)

That is not a joke, is it? As in C+=: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/12/14/1618239/github-takes-down-satirical-c-plus-equality-language"

Another incident that came to mind was Node.js Noordhuis refusing a commit that changed "he" to "them" in comments: http://www.dailydot.com/news/github-gendered-pronoun-debate/

sigh First world problems...

No, Aksimet, this is not spam. Really not. Go away. So what does it take Akismet to accept the two urls? Still not? grumble Next try. Dear Akismet, what else must I do? Ok, perhaps only one url?

TGV · 2013-12-18 Reply Admin

flukus:
I don't know why this is a WTF, methods do get slower the more you use them.
I was profiling an application the other day and 1 method was taking up 50% of the wall time. I duplicated the method and updated half the references and got it down to 25%.

I could of improved performance further but I think I struck the right balance between performance and maintainability. Plus, it's nice to have something like that up my sleeve when performance reviews roll around again.

This is a commonly known as the Linear Speed-up Theorem, which in principle allows infinite increase in speed. That's why modern binaries are so large: all those duplicated functions.

But you were not supposed to tell about it! Didn't they tell you when you learned the handshake?

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

flukus:
I don't know why this is a WTF, methods do get slower the more you use them.
I was profiling an application the other day and 1 method was taking up 50% of the wall time. I duplicated the method and updated half the references and got it down to 25%.

I could of improved performance further but I think I struck the right balance between performance and maintainability. Plus, it's nice to have something like that up my sleeve when performance reviews roll around again.

ROTFL, I definitely will keep that one in mind for the next time someone comes around with weird metrics :-)

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

One million please's added.

bjolling · 2013-12-18 Reply Admin

Marcel:
Explain!:
Cheradenine Zakalwe:
public static string FemaleLogic(object data) {

This is fun because women are not part of our group, and are inferior and illogical.

http://www.hastac.org/blogs/ari-schlesinger/2013/11/26/feminism-and-programming-languages - for those who seem not to get it. (Apparently Akismet didn't like me making this a link.)

I gave up reading the page after this

OP's comment on her article:
There is great scholarship talking about weather a feminist logic can build off of formal logic or if it has to reject the laws of identity and create something entirely new.

Remy Porter · 2013-12-18 Reply Admin

In this case, said intern claimed programming experience, and while the code itself is just plain intern code, it's the explanation for the code that elevates this to TDWTF-worthy.

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

TRDWTF is the violation of the DRY principle, right?

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

This intern is actually brilliant. Consider performance profiling, no one horribly constructed method would appear to be the root cause. Only drilling down into the actual source would someone discover the problems. If each one was subtly different searching for duplicates would fail as well.

lucidfox · 2013-12-18 Reply Admin

Bas:
public static string FemaleLogic(object data) { string result = "Yes"; if (Logic(data)) { result = "No"; } return result; }

Sexist joke in third comment. That's a new record! CONGRATURATION!

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

faoileag:
That is not a joke, is it? As in C+=

Yea, the C+= thing was created as a parody based on the original article; as far as a bunch of us have managed to figure it out, the original is not a joke. Greenspun has a great comment at http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2013/12/12/why-do-people-who-chose-not-to-study-science-and-math-opine-on-the-virtues-of-studying-science-and-math/

Among existing technologies, my personal choice for a feminist programming language would be SQL. The woman expresses her demands for data with five lines of code; a team of 100 men writes 2 million lines of C that must consider all possible ways of satisfying the the query and ultimately supply the answer.

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

Bas:
public static string FemaleLogic(object data) { string result = "Yes"; if (Logic(data)) { result = "No"; } return result; }

If someone told you sexism is charming, they lied to you.

-JW

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

JW:
Bas:
public static string FemaleLogic(object data) { string result = "Yes"; if (Logic(data)) { result = "No"; } return result; }

If someone told you sexism is charming, they lied to you.

-JW

So, all the sitcoms where the husband is lazy, fat, and complains about his hot wife, is sexist too?

Fact: Men and women think differently. Sometimes even polar oppositely.

Observation: Pointing out that you don't understand something because it's different to you, as if it's wrong, is a joke, and is funny.

Observation: Claiming everything is -[x,c,?]ist is getting really really old.

gothytim · 2013-12-18 Reply Admin

Valued Service:

So, all the sitcoms where the husband is lazy, fat, and complains about his hot wife, is sexist too?

Yes.

Valued Service:
Observation: Claiming everything is -[x,c,?]ist is getting really really old.

Sexism in the tech industry is getting pretty old too. This isn't a case of "teh mens and teh wimmins think differently!!1!one!", this is out-and-out sexism, claiming that women are "anti-logical". They're not.

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

[image]

In hindsight, that made Firefox act pretty weird. "Prevent this page from creating additional dialogs" didn't exactly work as it should've.

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

Valued Service:
Fact: Men and women think differently. Sometimes even polar oppositely.

Stating that something is a fact doesn't make it true.

Men and women are heavily socialised to think differently, but even so there's plenty of evidence that the variation between the genders is overwhelmed by the variation within each.

Observation: Claiming everything is -[x,c,?]ist is getting really really old.

Though not nearly as old as so much being sexist. I, for one, am really exceedingly sick of that.

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

gothytim:
...claiming that women are "anti-logical". They're not.

Did you read that article? It specifically calls for the development of a "feminist logic".

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

Bas:
public static string FemaleLogic(object data) { string result = "Yes"; if (Logic(data)) { result = "No"; } return result; }

Haha! Yes! So funny because women are illogical! And kudos to the site for making this a featured comment! Really gives it that extra kick!

Hey, do you think we could work in a joke about how women should just be making us sandwiches all the time? That would be totally boss!

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

ceiswyn:
Valued Service:
Fact: Men and women think differently. Sometimes even polar oppositely.

Stating that something is a fact doesn't make it true.

Men and women are heavily socialised to think differently, but even so there's plenty of evidence that the variation between the genders is overwhelmed by the variation within each.

Not only is "men and women think differently" a fact, but the brains of men and women are so markedly different that there have been studies which showed that a gay person's brain scan looks more like that of an individual of their identified gender rather than their birth gender.

If you want to argue that that's entirely due to socialised effects, be my guest. Maybe you'll invent the next cure for gayness. If it can be taught, it can be untaught.

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

The office manager where I used to work was originally responsible for assigning projects tracking codes as they were created. (The codes were just sequential integers with a simple suffix.) She wouldn't give a project a tracking code until she felt the project was "real." This caused a lot of problems with time coding as projects without tracking codes all got time-billed to "Miscellaneous." When 35% of your time billing is "Miscellaneous" the purpose of time-billing is being somewhat diluted.

The relevant point is that I was hired to fix the system, and I set up a simple routine where project managers could assign a tracking code whenever they went over a certain number of hours or various other conditions were met for a given project. They just clicked "New Project" and the system would increment the code and assign a new one.

She had a fit.

Why?

"They'll just assign numbers to everything."

And?

"We'll run out of numbers!"

fin -

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

anonymous:
[quote user="ceiswyn"][quote user="Valued Service"] Fact: Men and women think differently. Sometimes even polar oppositely.[/QUOTE]
Stating that something is a fact doesn't make it true.

Men and women are heavily socialised to think differently, but even so there's plenty of evidence that the variation between the genders is overwhelmed by the variation within each.[/quote]Not only is "men and women think differently" a fact, but the brains of men and women are so markedly different that there have been studies which showed that a gay person's brain scan looks more like that of an individual of their identified gender rather than their birth gender.

If you want to argue that that's entirely due to socialised effects, be my guest. Maybe you'll invent the next cure for gayness. If it can be taught, it can be untaught.

What the hell? That [/QUOTE] tag appears to have completely broken the quoting, but I swear it was all caps already. Somehow it worked correctly in ceiswyn's post and broke when I quoted it.

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

anonymous coward:
Not only is "men and women think differently" a fact, but the brains of men and women are so markedly different that there have been studies which showed that a gay person's brain scan looks more like that of an individual of their identified gender rather than their birth gender.

I do find neuroplasticity a fascinating field. I wish I'd studied it more. Though not as much as I wish that most people had studied it at all :)

If you want to argue that that's entirely due to socialised effects, be my guest. Maybe you'll invent the next cure for gayness. If it can be taught, it can be untaught.

If you can find me an environment that I can put my subjects in for about twenty years that provides support for women speaking out, constantly pictures them as capable and rational in the media, emphasises what they do rather than what they look like, doesn't blame them for acts of violence committed against them etc etc...

...then I won't bother doing the study, I'll just move in :)

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

...impressive. Now apparently I can't quote either! :)

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

public static string FemaleLogic(object data) { string result = "Maybe"; if (Logic(data)) { result = "Maybe"; } return result; }

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

How about this? Is this ok? Not sexist because it is a concrete, not abstract, implmementation?

public class MyWife
{
  public static string FemaleLogic(object data) {
      throw new NotImplementedException();
  }
}

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

ceiswyn:
If you can find me an environment that I can put my subjects in for about twenty years that provides support for women speaking out, constantly pictures them as capable and rational in the media, emphasises what they do rather than what they look like, doesn't blame them for acts of violence committed against them etc etc...
...then I won't bother doing the study, I'll just move in :)

Your coffin is waiting right over here...

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

ceiswyn:
...impressive. Now apparently I can't quote either! :)

Your original post (at least if the quoted text is to be believed) appears to have a [quote][/QUOTE]...[QUOTE][/quote] which somehow matched up and rendered correctly in a BBcode parser that's obviously case-sensitive. When I removed the second set of quote tags, it mismatched and completely exploded. yet another thing that I now must watch out for when quoting... or I could just not be lazy and use the preview button...

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

All these comments and I didn't see anyone mention the whole "yes"/"no" boolean system.

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

Jeremy:
All these comments and I didn't see anyone mention the whole "yes"/"no" boolean system.

I think by now we know enough to assume that it's either trying to create human-readable output or it's forced to interface with a WTF of a system that requires Yes/No Boolean input. Not much else you can do...

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

MC:
The office manager where I used to work was originally responsible for assigning projects tracking codes as they were created. (The codes were just sequential integers with a simple suffix.) She wouldn't give a project a tracking code until she felt the project was "real." This caused a lot of problems with time coding as projects without tracking codes all got time-billed to "Miscellaneous." When 35% of your time billing is "Miscellaneous" the purpose of time-billing is being somewhat diluted.
The relevant point is that I was hired to fix the system, and I set up a simple routine where project managers could assign a tracking code whenever they went over a certain number of hours or various other conditions were met for a given project. They just clicked "New Project" and the system would increment the code and assign a new one.

She had a fit.

Why?

"They'll just assign numbers to everything."

And?

"We'll run out of numbers!"

fin -

Thank god you provided an anecdote that proves that all women are silly geese! It's so heartening to think that no man has ever said something so stupid.

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

Matteo:
...*all* women are silly geese! It's so heartening to think that no man has ever said something so stupid.

Hmm... Matteo is a sexist, Matteo is a sexist...

(Yeah, childish, I know. Making a point. There was no reference in MC's post to all women.)

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

Matteo:
Thank god you provided an anecdote that *proves* that *all* women are silly geese! It's so heartening to think that no man has ever said something so stupid.

And then some of us read that anecdote and never once considered the fact that her gender might have been implicated in her stupidity. It was her gender; everyone has one; changing her to a male in the story just to avoid stereotyping females is sexist, and trying to write with gender-neutral language is just a pain in the ass.

2013-12-18 Reply Admin

Marcel:
faoileag:
That is not a joke, is it? As in C+=

Yea, the C+= thing was created as a parody based on the original article; as far as a bunch of us have managed to figure it out, the original is not a joke. Greenspun has a great comment at http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2013/12/12/why-do-people-who-chose-not-to-study-science-and-math-opine-on-the-virtues-of-studying-science-and-math/

Among existing technologies, my personal choice for a feminist programming language would be SQL. The woman expresses her demands for data with five lines of code; a team of 100 men writes 2 million lines of C that must consider all possible ways of satisfying the the query and ultimately supply the answer.

What would a feminist programming language look like? Just imagine any Turing complete language and remove all reason and accountability.

Don't Wear Out Your Methods

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