• (cs)

    Any database structure that prefixes tables with tbl_ is guaranteed to be horrible.

  • Hannes (unregistered)
    Yes. I like the way it looked. The symmetry. The and kept the diagram around to preserve it".

    I think you accidentally the whole thing there. Plus, you are missing the leading quotation marks.

  • Reza (unregistered)

    Ray's lucky to discover early in her career that there's no meaning to life.

  • Ryan (unregistered)

    As long as it's not used in any production system or code, I don't see the big problem. Sure it's a bit of a whacky definition of "art" but we've all seen nerdier things than that.

  • (cs)

    Wow... Wanting to quit over a team lead with a bit too much time on his hands and a weird sense of art...

    Be happy he's not the micromanaging type and that this abomination isn't actually used.

    If you think this is worth quitting over, you're gonna have a bad time!

  • (cs) in reply to pnieuwkamp
    pnieuwkamp:
    Wow... Wanting to quit over a team lead with a bit too much time on his hands and a weird sense of art...

    Be happy he's not the micromanaging type and that this abomination isn't actually used.

    If you think this is worth quitting over, you're gonna have a bad time!

    This.

  • Ziplodocus (unregistered) in reply to Quango
    Quango:
    Any database structure that prefixes tables with tbl_ is guaranteed to be horrible.

    Really?

  • Ike (unregistered)

    "She poured over all of the documentation provided to her by her team lead."

    What did she pour over all of the documentation? Tears? I think you meant to say that she PORED over the documentation.

  • Fyodor Soikin (unregistered) in reply to pnieuwkamp
    pnieuwkamp:
    Wow... Wanting to quit over a team lead with a bit too much time on his hands and a weird sense of art...

    Be happy he's not the micromanaging type and that this abomination isn't actually used.

    If you think this is worth quitting over, you're gonna have a bad time!

    Totally. TRWTF is posting this on TDWTF.

  • MrOli (unregistered)

    What's "Ray" short for?

    A. She hasn't got any legs.

  • Smug Unix User (unregistered)

    Some people like the look of table diagrams, others like recursive symbolic links.

  • (cs) in reply to pnieuwkamp
    pnieuwkamp:
    Wow... Wanting to quit over a team lead with a bit too much time on his hands and a weird sense of art...

    Be happy he's not the micromanaging type and that this abomination isn't actually used.

    If you think this is worth quitting over, you're gonna have a bad time!

    I'm with Ray here. If I've been tasked with maintaining a system, and within that system there's some utter shit like this, and it has been explained that it is utterly meaningless shit, because my boss has fuck all better to do, then I, too, am looking to fuck off as soon as possible. Because life's too short.

  • anonymøøse (unregistered)

    I work with someone who actually does design tables and classes like this. The best part is he's a team lead and self-proclaimed architect, and thinks his stuff is great.

    CAPTCHA: 'damnum', they can fit a few more damnums in that table structure.

  • Pista (unregistered)

    Seems to me that this is for a different site: TheDailyOCD.com - Curious Obsessions in Information Technology.

  • qazwsx (unregistered)

    Ray was not just a recent addition to the DailyWTF team. She was also a recent grad just getting started in her career. As a result, she was eager to glean as much knowledge as she could from any source she could find. She poured over all of the stories provided to her by her team lead. She read the HTML comments (because that's the storehouse of communal knowledge for every team), reviewed the code and examined the cornify links.

    All was going swimmingly...until she came across the following.

    Casa de Quixote is a small, state-run retirement community in La Mancha, in central Spain. Sergio is the sole developer of software managing hundreds of residents. Missing documentation, he tracks down his predecessors for help.

    After spending enough time to ensure that the purpose of the story wasn't something blinding obvious (or opaquely obvious), she walked over to her team lead's desk.

    "Ahhhh. I see you found it.", he said.

    "Found it??"

    "Yes. My masterpiece. I spent more than a few hours on that story getting everything defined and lined up properly"

    Ray had a confused look on her face.

    "I even had to set the size of the paragraphs so they would all fit on the screen."

    "Set...the size??"

    "Yes. That's why I named the characters like I did."

    "I don't think I understand. What is TRWTF in this story?"

    "It's not for the WTF. It's art."

    Ray paused. "Art?"

    Yes. I like the way I wrote it. The allusion. The and kept the story around to preserve it".

    "Okay. Thanks. I guess", said Ray.

    "No problem. Come back any time you need to have something explained."

    Ray retreated back to her desk. Afraid of what she might find, Ray didn't really have the enthusiasm to dig into more of the HTML comments. Or Error'd diagrams. But she did start to think about how long she would have to stay in this website before it wouldn't look bad on her RSS reader if she left. Or maybe she should just start looking now. By using a little artistic license, she could just pretend this website never actually happened.

  • Anomynous Misspeller (unregistered) in reply to qazwsx
    qazwsx:
    Ray was not just a recent addition to the DailyWTF team. She was also a recent grad just getting started in her career. As a result, she was eager to glean as much knowledge as she could from any source she could find. She poured over all of the stories provided to her by her team lead. She read the HTML comments (because that's the storehouse of communal knowledge for every team), reviewed the code and examined the cornify links.

    All was going swimmingly...until she came across the following.

    Casa de Quixote is a small, state-run retirement community in La Mancha, in central Spain. Sergio is the sole developer of software managing hundreds of residents. Missing documentation, he tracks down his predecessors for help.

    After spending enough time to ensure that the purpose of the story wasn't something blinding obvious (or opaquely obvious), she walked over to her team lead's desk.

    "Ahhhh. I see you found it.", he said.

    "Found it??"

    "Yes. My masterpiece. I spent more than a few hours on that story getting everything defined and lined up properly"

    Ray had a confused look on her face.

    "I even had to set the size of the paragraphs so they would all fit on the screen."

    "Set...the size??"

    "Yes. That's why I named the characters like I did."

    "I don't think I understand. What is TRWTF in this story?"

    "It's not for the WTF. It's art."

    Ray paused. "Art?"

    Yes. I like the way I wrote it. The allusion. The and kept the story around to preserve it".

    "Okay. Thanks. I guess", said Ray.

    "No problem. Come back any time you need to have something explained."

    Ray retreated back to her desk. Afraid of what she might find, Ray didn't really have the enthusiasm to dig into more of the HTML comments. Or Error'd diagrams. But she did start to think about how long she would have to stay in this website before it wouldn't look bad on her RSS reader if she left. Or maybe she should just start looking now. By using a little artistic license, she could just pretend this website never actually happened.

    You win comments for the day.

  • spaceman (unregistered) in reply to qazwsx
    qazwsx:
    Ray was not just a recent addition to the DailyWTF team. She was also a recent grad just getting started in her career. As a result, she was eager to glean as much knowledge as she could from any source she could find. She poured over all of the stories provided to her by her team lead. She read the HTML comments (because that's the storehouse of communal knowledge for every team), reviewed the code and examined the cornify links.

    All was going swimmingly...until she came across the following.

    Casa de Quixote is a small, state-run retirement community in La Mancha, in central Spain. Sergio is the sole developer of software managing hundreds of residents. Missing documentation, he tracks down his predecessors for help.

    After spending enough time to ensure that the purpose of the story wasn't something blinding obvious (or opaquely obvious), she walked over to her team lead's desk.

    "Ahhhh. I see you found it.", he said.

    "Found it??"

    "Yes. My masterpiece. I spent more than a few hours on that story getting everything defined and lined up properly"

    Ray had a confused look on her face.

    "I even had to set the size of the paragraphs so they would all fit on the screen."

    "Set...the size??"

    "Yes. That's why I named the characters like I did."

    "I don't think I understand. What is TRWTF in this story?"

    "It's not for the WTF. It's art."

    Ray paused. "Art?"

    Yes. I like the way I wrote it. The allusion. The and kept the story around to preserve it".

    "Okay. Thanks. I guess", said Ray.

    "No problem. Come back any time you need to have something explained."

    Ray retreated back to her desk. Afraid of what she might find, Ray didn't really have the enthusiasm to dig into more of the HTML comments. Or Error'd diagrams. But she did start to think about how long she would have to stay in this website before it wouldn't look bad on her RSS reader if she left. Or maybe she should just start looking now. By using a little artistic license, she could just pretend this website never actually happened.

    most quotable quote gets quoted.

    also, what is tbl_details linked to? i want to see the whole masterpiece...

  • Zog (unregistered)

    The real WTF here is that it is wrong given the purpose, a simple table of subject, predicate and object fields would have sufficed...it's called a graph and many people have suffered over proving this...but what do legions of people such as Tim Berners-Lee and co know about data eh?

    sigh

  • qagoon (unregistered)

    Meanwhile at Company B, the newest employee has been informed that working weekends in now mandatory, you must start bringing in your own toilet paper as this will no longer be provided and that the CEO's brother likes to stop by to give creepy shoulder rubs to keep everyone motivated.

    But yea, having so much free time that your manager draws Documentation Art seems like a good reason to quit.

  • OldCoder (unregistered) in reply to MrOli
    MrOli:
    What's "Ray" short for? A. She hasn't got any legs.
    Er, Rachel, perhaps? Knew one of those.
  • (cs) in reply to MrOli
    MrOli:
    What's "Ray" short for?

    A. She hasn't got any legs.

    WTF?

  • CEO's Brother (unregistered) in reply to qagoon
    qagoon:
    Meanwhile at Company B, the newest employee has been informed that working weekends in now mandatory, you must start bringing in your own toilet paper as this will no longer be provided and that the CEO's brother likes to stop by to give creepy shoulder rubs to keep everyone motivated.

    But yea, having so much free time that your manager draws Documentation Art seems like a good reason to quit.

    No-one has ever complained before!

  • Camoneet (unregistered) in reply to qagoon
    qagoon:
    Meanwhile at Company B, the newest employee has been informed that working weekends in now mandatory, you must start bringing in your own toilet paper as this will no longer be provided and that the CEO's brother likes to stop by to give creepy shoulder rubs to keep everyone motivated.

    But yea, having so much free time that your manager draws Documentation Art seems like a good reason to quit.

    If you creatively fill out paperwork, you don't need to bring in your own toilet paper.

  • RD (unregistered) in reply to NamingException
    NamingException:
    MrOli:
    What's "Ray" short for?

    A. She hasn't got any legs.

    WTF?

    Not a native English speaker?

    "What's Ray short for?" can also be read as "What is the reason for Ray not being very tall?"

    CAPTCHA: valetudo, an Ancient Roman infantry formation for waving goodbye.

  • (cs) in reply to RD
    RD:
    NamingException:
    MrOli:
    What's "Ray" short for?

    A. She hasn't got any legs.

    WTF?

    Not a native English speaker?

    "What's Ray short for?" can also be read as "What is the reason for Ray not being very tall?"

    CAPTCHA: valetudo, an Ancient Roman infantry formation for waving goodbye.

    Oh, of course. I haven't had enough coffee for Borscht Belt yet.

  • Developer Dude (unregistered) in reply to Ziplodocus
    Ziplodocus:
    Quango:
    Any database structure that prefixes tables with tbl_ is guaranteed to be horrible.

    Really?

    Yes - really. Or anything similar. Generally applies to code too.

    BTDT - living it right now.

    Never fails. At least in my experience

  • Developer Dude (unregistered)

    As for whether it is worth quitting over, that depends on the rest of the team, the project and so on - but yes, at that stage of her career I would recommend looking for something better where she can learn real skills and get good experience beyond learning how NOT to write code or design a schema - there is plenty of time for that later.

    It is important to get good experience and have good mentoring early in your career. It will accelerate you career and earning potential.

    If you are willing to settle for working on crap towards the end of your career because you are filling up your 401K/IRA and waiting until it has enough to retire, then a few years at job that isn't going anywhere may be okay because it may be your last job.

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to Ike
    Ike:
    "She poured over all of the documentation provided to her by her team lead."

    What did she pour over all of the documentation? Tears? I think you meant to say that she PORED over the documentation.

    No, no, no. It's PAWED obviously. Like a kitty cat.

    ;)

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to MrOli
    MrOli:
    What's "Ray" short for?

    A. She hasn't got any legs.

    I knew a Rhea once (pronounced the same).

  • duis (unregistered) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    Ike:
    "She poured over all of the documentation provided to her by her team lead."

    What did she pour over all of the documentation? Tears? I think you meant to say that she PORED over the documentation.

    No, no, no. It's PAWED obviously. Like a kitty cat.

    ;)

    Burying the documentation in a litter box, where it obviously belongs? ;-)

  • Anomaly (unregistered)

    Ray doesn't have to be short for anything, its an acceptable First Name for a woman or man. Though typical spellings for women pin an 'e' on the end, so it becomes Raye. Would probably be short for Rachel.

  • (cs)

    This would have been funnier written from the perspective of Ray's team lead, talking about the dour, utterly humorless new hire.

  • (cs)

    I am seeing two WTF's in here.

    1. Software developer bothering to read documentation.
    2. A girl named Ray.

    2nd one is not that much of WTF, but the first one is definitely.

  • (cs) in reply to Anomaly
    Anomaly:
    Ray doesn't have to be short for anything, its an acceptable First Name for a woman or man. Though typical spellings for women pin an 'e' on the end, so it becomes Raye. Would probably be short for Rachel.

    Short for Rachel would be Rack and not Ray.

  • Raylene (unregistered)

    obviously...

  • (cs) in reply to RD
    RD:
    NamingException:
    MrOli:
    What's "Ray" short for?

    A. She hasn't got any legs.

    WTF?

    Not a native English speaker?

    "What's Ray short for?" can also be read as "What is the reason for Ray not being very tall?"

    I am a native speaker of English (American dialect). No, "What's Ray short for?" can not be correctly read as "What is the reason for Ray not being very tall?" It could, however, be read as "What is the purpose of Ray being short", in which case the answer above, "She hasn't got any legs" does not make any sense. If the question were, "What's Ray got no legs for?", then the answer could be, "To fit in her VW Bug." So I agree with NamingException above.

  • Donald Knuth (unregistered) in reply to Developer Dude
    Developer Dude:
    Ziplodocus:
    Quango:
    Any database structure that prefixes tables with tbl_ is guaranteed to be horrible.

    Really?

    Yes - really. Or anything similar. Generally applies to code too.

    BTDT - living it right now.

    Never fails. At least in my experience

    lol - religous wars...

    Celko - "tbl-" is silly and redundant LaRock - My reason for wanting to use prefixes is simple enough: I want to know if I am looking at a table or a view when reviewing code.

    I used to swear by hungarian notation. Older tools you knew by seeing bVar = cVar you were either not going to compile, get a runtime error, or get an implicit conversion depending on your language. Modern IDEs make that thinking obsolete. Modern IDEs it just means you have to type more characters to get a good auto-complete. However, no modern IDE I've worked with will let you hover over a table name and tell you if it is a view or a table. Maybe there is one I don't know about and I should switch to it.

  • (cs) in reply to pnieuwkamp
    pnieuwkamp:
    Wow... Wanting to quit over a team lead with a bit too much time on his hands and a weird sense of art...

    Be happy he's not the micromanaging type and that this abomination isn't actually used.

    If you think this is worth quitting over, you're gonna have a bad time!

    Depends on the app. If it's a core product, and what (s)he will be working on for most of his/her time, then it's worth quitting over. If it's just a small, side project that doesn't see much sunlight, then it's good for talk at the water cooler. I have a number of apps like that at my job, but rarely touch them.

  • (cs) in reply to tharpa
    tharpa:
    No, "What's Ray short for?" can not be correctly read as "What is the reason for Ray not being very tall?"

    What color is the sky in your little world?

  • yeahso (unregistered) in reply to tharpa
    tharpa:
    RD:
    NamingException:
    MrOli:
    What's "Ray" short for?

    A. She hasn't got any legs.

    WTF?

    Not a native English speaker?

    "What's Ray short for?" can also be read as "What is the reason for Ray not being very tall?"

    I am a native speaker of English (American dialect). No, "What's Ray short for?" can not be correctly read as "What is the reason for Ray not being very tall?" It could, however, be read as "What is the purpose of Ray being short", in which case the answer above, "She hasn't got any legs" does not make any sense. If the question were, "What's Ray got no legs for?", then the answer could be, "To fit in her VW Bug." So I agree with NamingException above.

    It most certainly could be the same as "Why is Ray not tall?" At least in this part of the United States.

  • Jay (unregistered)

    Maybe I'm missing something here, but I thought the story said that the team lead said that this diagram was "not for anything", it was just his idea of art. I'm not clear if he thought this was actually a work of great beauty or a joke, but either way, it was just someone throwing together a picture when he had a few minutes of free time, and then storing it on the Wiki for a laugh. So what? I don't find his artwork particularly interesting or amusing, but I've never quit a job because I didn't share the same artistic taste or sense of humor with my boss.

    I suppose I could imagine extreme cases, like if his idea of great art was graphic pictures of people being tortured and he insisted on posting these on the walls all over the office, maybe I'd find it unpleasant enough to drive me to quit. But in this case, so you say to yourself, "Wow, that's really stupid", and you move on. What's the big deal? Why is this a reason to quit?

  • mara (unregistered)

    But...what keeps the cup from falling?

  • Jay (unregistered) in reply to tharpa
    tharpa:
    RD:
    NamingException:
    MrOli:
    What's "Ray" short for?

    A. She hasn't got any legs.

    WTF?

    Not a native English speaker?

    "What's Ray short for?" can also be read as "What is the reason for Ray not being very tall?"

    I am a native speaker of English (American dialect). No, "What's Ray short for?" can not be correctly read as "What is the reason for Ray not being very tall?" It could, however, be read as "What is the purpose of Ray being short", in which case the answer above, "She hasn't got any legs" does not make any sense. If the question were, "What's Ray got no legs for?", then the answer could be, "To fit in her VW Bug." So I agree with NamingException above.

    I think that's a pretty common idiom.

    "What are you working at XYZ company for?" "Because I get to work on interesting projects there."

    "What are you eating tacos for?" "Because I like Mexican food."

    "What is Ray absent today for?" "Because she's sick."

    Etc.

  • (cs) in reply to Jay
    Jay:
    Maybe I'm missing something here, but I thought the story said that the team lead said that this diagram was "not for anything", it was just his idea of art. I'm not clear if he thought this was actually a work of great beauty or a joke, but either way, it was just someone throwing together a picture when he had a few minutes of free time, and then storing it on the Wiki for a laugh. So what? I don't find his artwork particularly interesting or amusing, but I've never quit a job because I didn't share the same artistic taste or sense of humor with my boss.

    I suppose I could imagine extreme cases, like if his idea of great art was graphic pictures of people being tortured and he insisted on posting these on the walls all over the office, maybe I'd find it unpleasant enough to drive me to quit. But in this case, so you say to yourself, "Wow, that's really stupid", and you move on. What's the big deal? Why is this a reason to quit?

    While I do think that this article is fairly well written, it should make the distinction as to how crucial the application is. It only implies that it's crucial enough to quit over.

  • Done (unregistered)

    Long time reader, frist time poster here. After much consideration, I am now done with TDWTF. It hasn't been funny or WTF'y for months now.

  • Valued Service (unregistered) in reply to Developer Dude
    Developer Dude:
    Ziplodocus:
    Quango:
    Any database structure that prefixes tables with tbl_ is guaranteed to be horrible.

    Really?

    Yes - really. Or anything similar. Generally applies to code too.

    BTDT - living it right now.

    Never fails. At least in my experience

    They're afraid that they'll get name collision.

    Same reason for FirstNameTextbox.

    Those people never learned that in WPF you bind to data, and in Winforms you do the same thing. You don't have to make a object for the control, you can make a object for the databinding in winforms.

    Same mistake people make in SQL. You name your tables like plural for entities. Then you name your sProcs like actions.

    trucks writeTrucks deleteTrucks exportTrucks

    It's pretty clear what's the table and what're the sProcs.

  • Ted (unregistered) in reply to Zog
    Zog:
    what do legions of people such as Tim Berners-Lee and co know about data eh?
    Not much. I mean he created this massive web that lacks referential integrity, something we had pretty well worked out by, oh what was it, 1980 or so?
  • (cs) in reply to Valued Service
    Valued Service:
    They're afraid that they'll get name collision.

    Same reason for FirstNameTextbox.

    Those people never learned that in WPF you bind to data, and in Winforms you do the same thing. You don't have to make a object for the control, you can make a object for the databinding in winforms.

    Same mistake people make in SQL. You name your tables like plural for entities. Then you name your sProcs like actions.

    trucks writeTrucks deleteTrucks exportTrucks

    It's pretty clear what's the table and what're the sProcs.

    So then you have a logging schema for events. A table named events. Then an object named deleteEvents, which you're not sure if it's a proc to delete an event, or a view of events where something was deleted.

  • Codd (unregistered) in reply to Valued Service
    Valued Service:
    trucks writeTrucks deleteTrucks exportTrucks
    It's not the "trucks table" it's the "truck table". You read and write "truck records" not "trucks records".
  • Valued Service (unregistered) in reply to Jay
    Jay:
    tharpa:
    RD:
    NamingException:
    MrOli:
    What's "Ray" short for?

    A. She hasn't got any legs.

    WTF?

    Not a native English speaker?

    "What's Ray short for?" can also be read as "What is the reason for Ray not being very tall?"

    I am a native speaker of English (American dialect). No, "What's Ray short for?" can not be correctly read as "What is the reason for Ray not being very tall?" It could, however, be read as "What is the purpose of Ray being short", in which case the answer above, "She hasn't got any legs" does not make any sense. If the question were, "What's Ray got no legs for?", then the answer could be, "To fit in her VW Bug." So I agree with NamingException above.

    I think that's a pretty common idiom.

    "What are you working at XYZ company for?" "Because I get to work on interesting projects there."

    "What are you eating tacos for?" "Because I like Mexican food."

    "What is Ray absent today for?" "Because she's sick."

    Etc.

    It's bad English, but it is commonly used. You should avoid ending a statement in a preposition or conjunction.

    Example: Don't give me the what for!

    This means, "Don't tell me why."

    Used often when the speaker doesn't like something, and is being given an excuse instead of handling the situation the way the speaker wants.

    "Why" can describe a purpose or a cause.

    Purpose: Why is the light off? We want to surprise the guest.

    Cause: Why is the light off? It is broken.

    You can substitute, What is the light off for? What? is targeting a purpose or cause.

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