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Admin
I'm also suprised about the data being saved -
In VB6 you cannot call subroutines using empty parentheses, and you cannot call functions without storing the return value (unless you use the call statement).
Admin
I was sitting here reading this thinking back to whe I used VS2003, and sure it was a configurable option about whether or not to ALLOW Edit and Continue, and also whether or not to permit editing of files while debugging.
Some clicking later...
If you go to Tools > Options > Debugging node
there's
"Changes in Visual C++ Code" - Checkbox to "Enable Edit and Continue"
"Changes in Visual Basic and Visual C# Code" - Checkboxes to
"Allow me to edit C# files while debugging"
"Allow me to edit VB files while debugging"
but then it asks what to do with these changes, warn, restart program, or ignore them and carry on with the already compiled code.
So it seems that you CAN edit and continue in VS2003 if using C++ - So in answer to "What other languages..." C++, which most people would agree is a "proper" language
And yes, Edit and Continue in VB did disappear for a version of VS!! Gotta love those MS project managers!
Admin
OK, well in reference to these, i'll explain with an even better WTF from that job:
As far as I know, they weren't paying him to learn coding from scratch, he claimed to have a substantial amount of experience. In fact, this was a very time-critical project the got placed on, a project where experience really mattered. When he messed up on a daily basis, I was left to clean up, which took time away from the bottom line. After many management WTF's, each of which is an entire separate story, the deadline got moved CLOSER a month, and we were screwed. I got yelled at by the boss for not doing my job well, to which I responded by getting a different boss (i had several) to explain it to him how it wasn't my fault at all, and they had to know it. That at least got me to the next project, which was 100 times worse. I've worked at a lot of places that had extreme WTF's like this. Fortunately, I made it to a good location in the end, and I intend to stay there as long as possible!
Admin
I'm betting all the VB bashers here on DWTF either
A) Haven't used VB professionaly.
B) Don't have the programming skills to use it properly.
VB is a tool, a great one for a lot of purposes. If you know anything about software construction you can see that. And as with any tool, there are a lot of tasks for which it is not well suited.
It takes skill to produce quality software in any language, while crap can be quickly produced by anyone...
Admin
We just bash VB because the C++ guys used to bash us for using C# or Java. The cycle repeats. The C++ guys where bashed by the C guys for using MFC and the standard library. The C guys used to get bashed by the assembly guys, who in turn where probably bashed by the punch card guys. I'm probably missing a few steps, but you get the idea.
Admin
VS 2003 uses VB.NET witch is "totally" different language than VB6
Admin
ML, oCamL, F# etc
Admin
Whatever, a lame employee isn't a WTF, it's a fact of life. Pre Bubble 1.0 you could get a job just by knowing VBA from taking a night school course.
Getting sick of all the arrogant comments from posters on TDWTF. I doubt half of you would have a job had your first employers been so brutal.
That said, programming as part of the interview process is a good idea. Here's a tip .. don't just test people on what they know, see if they can do as well when not in familar territory. e.g. If you're hiring a C# developer, make them code Java in front of you.
Then again the problem with the daily wtf is slashdot-style posters that don't even read the other comments nor contribute anything useful. Blah blah blah nobody reads this anyway.
Admin
if it was a start position I would agree but if you ask for a seasoned developer and some one says he is and he isn't it is oke to let him/her go.
now if you would have read all the comments you would have seen a comment of the submitter stating that they where in fact hiring a developer with notable experience and the guy that they and up hiring told the hiring manager he was.
and why would you ask a C# developer to write some code in Java ok Java and C# are really similar but still why?
Admin
Not really, I always made sure that I was qualified for the work I would be doing and even demanded that the headhunter not lie about me and threatened legal action if they misrepresented me. I have never had the deer in the headlights look when showing up for an interview for a C# position when Java is my forte. Having worked for enough Fortune 500's, being treated fairly should be expected and competency required. This isn't burger-flipping.
I know that there are headhunters and people "just looking for a job". I don't like it when these people slip through. One company hired a Senior Java Programmer for a new project. The first day he was there, he borrowed an interns "Learn Java in 21 Days" book. I immediately informed his supervisor and within a week it was found that he was highly incompetent and had never seen Java before that day. The HR employee got a severe reprimand as well for hiring him. This is what should happen if you have a well running company.
Admin
If we want to be really thorough, there's no evidence that her surname is "Bean". I suspect the title should be parsed as The "Brillant Paula" Bean and the code is her attempt at a Java bean.
Admin
Just about every scripting language going?
Some compilers will auto-recompile C/C++ changes.
Admin
Let's at least applaud the company for what they did right. They gave him some real work to do day 1, and they knew immediatly they had a problem.
Most companys bring newbies along slowly, so they can get used to the environment. Before you know it, three months have gone by and they still don't know what they have.
The company I work for now runs every new employee through a 6 week "raining course ("bootcamp from Hell" is a better description) on their product before they become an official member of they company. They quickly find out if you were everything you claimed to be in the interview process. They also find out if you are willing to put in some extra effort (like work 12 hour days and weekends) to meet a goal. The washout rate is about 50% (and these are people that made it through the interview process.) Pretty expensive undertaking on their part, but they don't end up with any "chair potatos".
Admin
Yes and unless he was the only one who had applied for that job, there were a load of others left out on the shelf who by rights should have had that job (well more rights than he had anyway).
Admin
[code]
public Person (DNA mother, DNA father)
{
mother = (DNA)"Brillant!";
if (null != father)
father=null;
this.DNA=father.combine(mother);
//null pointer exception? what's that? i can't figure this out!
}
[code]
Admin
I learned one of my best apps from a guy that was let go.
I'm just sorry I didn't help him out a little more.
Languages are easy to pick up. It's always the application
knowlege that's important. Very little original code is done
anymore. Most tricks and tips are learned from the old source.
Geeks are usually Creeps, as we can see from the postings.
On one job a Mensa was heard to say:
"I won't change that code it's too elegant"
The program didn't work. They were let go shortly after that
for sitting and knitting during the day. How stupid.
Admin
Usually it's those who have been around in the job for a long time that are not training the newbies as to the specification, as well as the lack of a properly comprehensible spec, or if there is one, the newbie is unlikely to know where to look for it.
Sometimes it can be for self-preservation - if anyone else can maintain your application you become dispensible.
Admin
Usually it's those who have been around in the job for a long time that are not training the newbies as to the specification, as well as the lack of a properly comprehensible spec, or if there is one, the newbie is unlikely to know where to look for it.
Sometimes it can be for self-preservation - if anyone else can maintain your application you become dispensible.
Admin
The feature that allows you to change running code is called Edit and Continue. It existed in Visual Studio 2000 and (I think) 2002, was lost in Visual Studio 2003, and returned (partly due to overwhelming demand) in Visual Studio 2005.
Admin
Yes, that's one of the huge disadvantages of VS 2003. Go to VS 2005 and the feature will be back.
Admin
And if I told you that Paula Bean looked like the beanbag girl, would you still say that?
Admin
FYP
Admin
At my first job as a profreesional programmer, I was teamed with a "Senior Developer". Less than a week into the position, I realized that she didn't understand the language at all. I proceded to do all of the coding and she provided marginal designs. During senior staff meetings, she claimed to be doing all the work. Right before I left, I wrote a C++ class that she had virutally no chance of understanding. 1 week after I left she needed to do an enhancement. She opened the file and had to ask the intern for help.
Admin
I believe one of the guys who helped design Delphi was snatched up by MS and helped with the design of C#.
May be one of the reasons it's a pretty nice language.
Admin
Sometime's these WTFs can be so irritating! Alex uses so much hyperbole in his description and exaggerates so much that you can't help but get carried away by the rhetoric and start to believe the story. Then you get to the end and read "had he not repeated it with similar "problems" throughout the following year" and it makes you wonder how much of that story was made up. Someone that bad could not possibly have lasted a year, let alone a week.
Admin
Your company sounds stupid. But hey, hazing is a good way to foster group spirit. And they know all the people who can think independantly will be weeded out by the process. But hey, if your happy there, at least I know I'll never have to waste my time interviewing you.
Admin
I use VB6 a lot these days (Seriously, I don't know why people are so against it), and as far as I know the compiler will auto-delete the redundant parentheses when you so much as click off the line of code.
Admin
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it must be a ....
in this case the hiring manager failed in screening out this newbie to programming in general.
wtf#1 a vb6 wtf
wtf#2 a newbie
Admin
Is edit and continue enabled?
Admin
Sorry...I wasn't paying attention.
BeanbagGirl has my undivided attention.
Something about newbies being brought on with no programming experience? Lousy interviewing process? Kids afraid to raise their hands when they run into a wall? Bah! That's a WTF? We all have our horror stories about that.
Back to BeanbagGirl. Think she can code? Who cares? We have a Sr. Analyst position opening up. I can teach her...
Admin
Sorry.. but you should never underestimate the human ability of stupidity. There are companies where every single employee is like this. I know because i've been there.
Admin
What can I say? They keep beer (and other assorted "beverages") in the refrigerator (and yes you can drink at your desk, on the job, if you are having one of those days.) Catered lunches on Fridays. Every few weeks they call it quits early on Friday and bring in food and beverages for a get together. They take the entire company on an annual, all expenses paid trip (last year to Las Vegas, this year to a local resort that featured, amoung other things, a private concert by KC & The Sunchine Band.) This fall, they were rated the #2 company to work for in the Atlanta area by the Atlanta Business Chronicle.
You won't have to interview me. I've worked for big companies (AT&T, Verizon), and several small ones. They make it hard to get through the door, but this is by far the best company I've worked for when it comes to how they treat their employees.
Far from weeding out the independent thinkers. The boot camp seems to weed out those that can't think independently (since part of the requirements to get through the class is the ability to think on your feet and show imagination in problem solving.)
Admin
Well I was definantly trolling, since you responded nicely, I'll appologize for the tone of my letter.
I have a problem with companies that serve employes drinks. A previous company did that, without regard
to the fact that people would need to drive. I thought it was irresponsible. But I guess I lack tolerance for those things.
I'll assume that they do treat employees nicely, though that doesn't nessecarly seem hard to find. Though proper treatment of employees to me includes a lot more than free stuff. So that seems like your happy, though I'm not convinced I would be.
The part of your origional story that doesn't sound good is the overtime required for training. That seems to be quite an unreasonable demand. Deadline pressure for an actual business reason might compell me to stay later, if I know the company is going to respect my need to spend time off work with my family. But if there isn't that pressure, I wouldn't stand for it. I can get new jobs easily enough, though I've not needed to do it for taking a stand.
But it does seem like it would work to build team spirit for the company, in much the same way as frats and sports teams do. Though a different form somewhat. But I'm just cynical.
Admin
Hmmm. You've been there, in companies where every single employee is like that? So . . . you're stupid, too?
Admin
On my VB6.0 installation it shows the error "Compile Error: Expected: ="
Admin
Draw the button on a piece of paper. Place it on a wooden table...
Admin
Yes, that is in regard to the missing call statement.
Admin
Okay, how about this one:
"if false and deleteEverythingInTheDatabase()"
Name any other language that will run the function. I guarantee the list is far shorter than the languages-that-can-be-edited-while-running.
VB - like any other language - can be just fine in the hands of an experienced programmer, but I have to say it's at the bottom of my list of the languages I've used.
No...wait - it still beats ColdFusion.
Admin
Isn't it obvious? Because that would have meant whoever hired him admitting making a mistake. And we can't have that.
Admin
Would you like to sign a lifetime contract with my company? Our product has no features and does no work, but look how pretty it is!
Admin
Borland Delphi (aka Object Pascal) would, if you select "Complete Boolean eval" in the compiler options.
Of course, deleteEverythingInTheDatabase() would have to be a function with boolean result type, and the syntax would read like this:
if false and deleteEverythingInTheDatabase then...
Admin
Geez I was asked to do harder stuff than this in most of my interviews, at least explaining what I would do. And my current job I had to fix an application written in Delphi, that I had never even seen and the fix was more complicated than this guy's task, and it still took me less time than he took.
Admin
You guys have never had real jobs. This is standard in the workplace. Every IT department has 60%-80% of staff who have absolutely no knowledge or aptitude for the job but stumble around doing non-tasks for their entire careers.
Admin
My experiences has been going into jobs:
A) The company uses several badly written custom applications that has virtually no documentation and source code that is so screwed up you can't even debug it.
B) The company has at least one if not more "senior level developers" who have been around a good while and their appearance to the rest of the company is that they know their stuff, but the reality is they've relied on those they've worked with forever to get things done and by themselves couldn't develop software to save their life. And what makes it the most frustrating is when you finally discover they can't do what they act like they can (and get paid more than you) and you even go so far as to point out to those in charge the truth (with proof), and nothing is done. No firings, no reprimands, not even taking away responsibilities. They are still given the good projects and get the credit. You eventually learn to take it or leave, and they get someone else to take your place. Meanwhile the deadweight lives on.
Admin
Not sure if this is a running joke that I'm missing, but why do you call her Bean at all?
It seems to me that her function was called "paulaBean" because in the crappy examples of JavaBeans that you get with the compiler, they call them fooBean, barBean etc.
Admin
Similar for my first day at my job... they handed me some knowledge base code where the topics were organized in a tree, and told me to generalize the whole thing and all of its clients to allow for the topics to be organized in a DAG. A lot of fun :)
captcha: creative
Admin
Strange on this that so many people are defending this guy as being "new" and "inexperienced". This is idiocy, pure and simple. I would expect that if I went to my mother (who I convinced that regional areas get better reception because there are less people using the TV signal up, and who sometimes calls me to ask me which mouse button to click) and gave her that bit of code she'd be able to figure it out. Given 3-5 minutes of instruction in what a function is and how it's declared, it would seem pretty obvious to her that the issue was "somewhere in the save_data() thingy, what did you call it? Fangshin? That probably saves the data, right?"
The key to being a good programmer is not rote learning of syntax. It's being able to think logically, and solve problems. He failed. Badly.
The best thing written here and no one followed up on it. I'm so sick of being asked about a time I showed initiative, or resolve a conflict, etc. I write code. I don't have to show initiative. Sure, those are valuable work skills, but being able to do my job is more important. I'm a Senior PHP Developer now, and I have experience and portfolio to show for my time.
Coding-for-interview is a good idea. The last place (not the current... previously) I worked at made me do that. Writing reporting software for three days. Unpaid. I got the job, and it was by far the worst I've ever had.
The "senior developer" was useless. He was writing php code that found every "id" then on each of those was running a query for "WHERE id = $id". When asked why he didn't just get it all as one query. His response was that he wasn't really a "SQL Guy". In my opinion any web dev (especially PHP) who isn't an "SQL Guy" had better be an "SQL Girl" or they will quickly become an "Unemployed Guy/Girl".
Another bit of code I found opened a list of contacts. About 50 names. Optimally: 1 query. Bad: 50 queries. Actual number: 500 total queries. Every bit of data (first name, last name, date of birth, etc) was being retrieved seperately, with a query of its own.
The same company ran the Database from Hell. While not even in the league of the databases DWTF features, it had its own quirks. Things like tables that were joined on data that could be arbitrarily switched through a radio button on a users submitted form, rendering joins utterly useless, and dozens of other impressive WTFs.
The worst WTFs, though, were their procedures. There were none. Development of websites was done on individual machines, with no central file server. Each person had a copy of the website. They made changes, then uploaded them. Not downloaded, edited, then uploaded. They just changed and uploaded. Yes. Seriously.
Oh, the relevance of this? My first week I was chided for being too slow, and not producing work of a sufficient quality, with a few errors. The conversation went as follows.
Manager: You're taking too long with these. We need them done faster. Why are you taking so long?
Me: Because I was employed as a PHP/MySQL developer and you've got me doing print graphic design and Flash.
Manager: We don't need excuses, we need results. Hurry up.
I didn't stay long.
I now work in a good company, with good programmers. Sure there's the odd WTF, and some of the legacy code is nasty. But it's a good team, and that's all that matters. There's also the fact that I'm the resident PHP guy in a ColdFusion dev studio. Yes. They still exist. And no, I don't know why.
Oh, and the company in its hiring process had an interesting test. Basically to fix a CF page to look like the sample. Everything from coldfusion syntax bugs to CSS errors. I wasn't made to do the test, I was hired before it was finished, but I did sit it later, and I passed (very well). It was the first Coldfusion I'd ever seen. Debugging doesn't require a deep understanding of a language. Just a brain.
Admin
The Atari 800xl was my 2nd computer (first was a TI99A) -- and I set it up myself. I guess I'm a friggin' brain surgeon.
After 20 years it still amazes me how many people enter the software development field that have not a clue. Some of it is obvious nepotism - but aside from that, who gave them their first 'programming' job to list on their resume, and how did they continue to work in the field - given their obvious ineptitude? These people are boat anchors.
Right now I have two coworkers who are at loggerheads - the 'senior' one was having trouble dealing with the work, after his partner left for another job. We found a replacement - who is smart, educated, and constantly learning. Of course, the new guy makes the 'senior' guy look like a slug - which angers the slug. You could roast marshmellos(sic) over the heat generated in their exchanges.