The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

Xepol · 2006-02-14 Reply Admin

Noah strikes me as the type of person who insists that the Nile river couldn't possilby flood into the Mediteranian sea every spring because if you look at in on a map or globe, that way is up, and water NEVER runs up hill.

<sigh> Yes, I actually went to school with someone stupid enough to waste 2 days of class time arguing that point. Worse, the teacher took part in the argument for both days instead of teaching. Even worse, the person knew they were full of it and just wanted to waste time instead of learning. To this day, I can't figure out which part of that chain was the stupidest. No matter how you work it out, Noah would fit right in there somewhere.

2006-02-14 Reply Admin

If only you could see the ingenious script he wrote to generate this.

2006-02-14 Reply Admin

Well, we could always write it in C
switch (totalHours)
    case 1:
    case 2:
    ...
    case 12:
       dayCount = 0;
       hourCount = 12;
       break;
    case 13:
    ...
    case 24:
       dayCount = 1;
       hourCount = 0;
       break;

More insanity can follow.

Gene Wirchenko · 2006-02-14 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
I would agree with you about VB having limitations, but I wouldn't say it sucked. In capable hands the language is powerfull, but that goes for any language. VB does do a lot of handholding and for an experianced developer this often got in the way, but sucking? I think not.

I wish VB6 had a few more features, but it was livable.

What got in the way for me was VB6 insisting on syntax checking each line. This is a bother if you want to change another line while the line you are on is not syntactically correct. The checking can be turned off though.

It was nothing compared to the travails of VC++6. Add a class. Sometimes, it would not show up. Try adding it again: error that it already exists. It could not be deleted either. Welcome to the Twilight Zone.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

zephc · 2006-02-14 Reply Admin

"I would marry you if we lived in Vermont."

Brokeback Office Cubicle.

2006-02-14 Reply Admin

O h m y f r i g g i n ' G o d

It has been a while since Alex has posted an instant classic such as this. This one is up there with IsTrue(). When I read this, I almost sprayed thousands of urines in my pants.

kipthegreat · 2006-02-14 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Anonymous:

So, I take it that this would have been a good replacement?

dayCount = totalHours / 24
hourCount = totalHours % 24

Or does VB not support modulus?

Of course it does:

hourCount = totalHours mod 24

If you're wanting dayCount to be an integer, if I remember correctly (I've gone 5 years without doing anything in VB), you'd have to do:

dayCount = totalHours \ 24

Note that it's a backslash, not a forward slash, for integer division (otherwise dayCount would probably be a floating point number).

That being said, don't code in VB if you can avoid it. :)

2006-02-14 Reply Admin

xcen > it[image]

Gene Wirchenko:
Anonymous:
I would agree with you about VB having limitations, but I wouldn't say it sucked. In capable hands the language is powerfull, but that goes for any language. VB does do a lot of handholding and for an experianced developer this often got in the way, but sucking? I think not.

I wish VB6 had a few more features, but it was livable.

What got in the way for me was VB6 insisting on syntax checking each line. This is a bother if you want to change another line while the line you are on is not syntactically correct. The checking can be turned off though.

It was nothing compared to the travails of VC++6. Add a class. Sometimes, it would not show up. Try adding it again: error that it already exists. It could not be deleted either. Welcome to the Twilight Zone.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

riveting, mr.wirchenko. simply riveting.

sincerely,
A. Nonymous

2006-02-14 Reply Admin

I dunno... If I was Peter, I would have charged $10 per additional "day". He missed out on a golden opportunity here >:-)

--YY

2006-02-14 Reply Admin

effing funny!

kipthegreat · 2006-02-14 Reply Admin

You are to bring into the ark two of all half-days, morning and evening, to keep them alive with you.

Genesis 6:19, as interpreted by this Noah.

2006-02-14 Reply Admin

kipthegreat:

dayCount = totalHours \ 24

What The Fuck?

(captcha: DOOM .. is Zim in this forum software?)

Djinn · 2006-02-14 Reply Admin

First off, please stop all the Noah jokes. They aren't funny and you're upsetting Jesus.

Secondly, what's up with all you PHP haters? PHP is an awesome language. You have complete control over mixing up the code/html in a sexy marriage, or going MVC on its ass. Why should we complicate web pages with "applications" and shizzle like that? Having a web.config, and all the xml stuff taking care of, and controlling the application, only to write code for specific parts or "custom" portions of the "application" is really overkill.

I'm not saying there is not a threshold that once met, actually makes it easier to write and maintain a web site or web application in this manner, but for simple stuff like login, get/set data, it's WAY overkill. This is where PHP shines. Get the values from the db in xls or csv. PHP: easy. Java/.NET: overkill.

Bring it.

John YaYa · 2006-02-14 Reply Admin

Manni:
Manni:

True that.

D o u b l e T r u e

Damn forum software didn't color the text right. If you quote my response, you'll see it's correct. You know what the real WTF is here right? Flightless birds. Seriously, does that make any sense?

Along with non-alcoholic beer and vegetarian hamburgers...

And yeah, ostrich is pretty tasty. I hear the birds are pretty mean, though.

Mung Kee · 2006-02-14 Reply Admin

Djinn:
First off, please stop all the Noah jokes. They aren't funny and you're upsetting Jesus.

I agree, and I'm going to burn down my office in protest...just as soon as I finish my coffee.

Gene Wirchenko · 2006-02-14 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
kipthegreat:
dayCount = totalHours \ 24

What The Fuck?

The backslash? It has been in Microsoft BASICs since at least MBASIC 5. That was released about a quarter of a century ago. Are you a bit behind in your reading?

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

RoKe · 2006-02-14 Reply Admin

Mung Kee:
Who the hell is monitoring these developers? How do they get away with this?

No one is monitoring them. They work for people who know less about writing software than they do, often the only developer in a non-software buisness working for a boss who has no idea how software development is done. Trust me, I'm living the "dream". I started my new job a few months ago working for a big company, but it's not a software company. The software I write is used only here. I'm the first coder with any real experience they've ever hired. I've found some pretty nasty code. I think a lot of it comes from college kids and fresh-outs who don't have much experience and no one to guide them. We really need a software development guild.

foxyshadis · 2006-02-14 Reply Admin

Gene Wirchenko:
Anonymous:
kipthegreat:
dayCount = totalHours \ 24

What The Fuck?

The backslash? It has been in Microsoft BASICs since at least MBASIC 5. That was released about a quarter of a century ago. Are you a bit behind in your reading?

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

It annoys me whenever I transition back to a C-like language from a VB project, that \ is not integer division. Mostly because I can never keep straight which languages perform idiv, which promote everything to doubles, and which perform some bizarre bullshit operation vaguely related to division.

2006-02-14 Reply Admin

Who the crap is monitoring us! You guys act like we are gods I have watched yall all day talk about this and get the code wrong you are trying to type like you know every language.

THE FOLLOWING IS WRONG!!!! WTF

kipthegreat:
Anonymous:
Anonymous:

So, I take it that this would have been a good replacement?

dayCount = totalHours / 24
hourCount = totalHours % 24

Or does VB not support modulus?

Of course it does:

hourCount = totalHours mod 24

If you're wanting dayCount to be an integer, if I remember correctly (I've gone 5 years without doing anything in VB), you'd have to do:

dayCount = totalHours \ 24

Note that it's a backslash, not a forward slash, for integer division (otherwise dayCount would probably be a floating point number).

That being said, don't code in VB if you can avoid it. :)

THE ABOVE IS WRONG!!!! WTF

Anonymous:
No, don't hard code in numbers...you never know when the number of hours in a day will change!

LOL,

Yeah infact you should just create a application that will all run external code that way you never have to worry about needing to fix bugs or change fields.

THE FOLLOWING CODE IS HOW YOU WOULD DO IT. SHEESH!!!
In VB the integer actually auto rounds up so you need to do it this way so you get the correct days

dayCount = totalHours / 24 - 0.49

hourCount = totalHours Mod 24

2006-02-14 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
[sarcasm]
<sarcasm>Too easy djinn? Go home and write everything in machine language then. Higher level languages do have thier place. Matter of fact I'm going to start that right now! Heh talk about job security, and no compiler needed!
</sarcasm>[/sarcasm]

I would agree with you about VB having limitations, but I wouldn't say it sucked. In capable hands the language is powerfull, but that goes for any language. VB does do a lot of handholding and for an experianced developer this often got in the way, but sucking? I think not.

And manni, umm, yeah, how bout them steelers? Err, Power tools!

What's that I hear? Someone's ox getting gored...

limelight · 2006-02-14 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
THE FOLLOWING CODE IS HOW YOU WOULD DO IT. SHEESH!!!
In VB the integer actually auto rounds up so you need to do it this way so you get the correct days

dayCount = totalHours / 24 - 0.49
hourCount = totalHours Mod 24

I would think that taking the floor function would be more appropriate. In VB, dayCount = Int(totalHours / 24) should do the trick.

2006-02-14 Reply Admin

YEP!! Same thing basically but I was showing why.

2006-02-14 Reply Admin

Oh sorry was right int(expresion) reminded me that you can do this for short dayCount = totalHours 24
\ does do that my bad

Rank Amateur · 2006-02-14 Reply Admin

Volmarias:
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: J O B S E C U R I T Y I N A N U T S H E L L Noah is an absolute genius, plain and simple. I don't believe for a single minute that he didn't know how to do this the right way.

But who wants job security at a job where you actually have to work? Copying and pasting is such a drag compared to doing "graphics card performance research."

Const MaxHours = 765
Const Granularity = 12

...

If totalHours > MaxHours Then
    dayCount = 99999
    hourCount = 99999
    Exit Sub
End If
dayCount = Int(totalHours / 24)
hourCount = totalHours Mod 24
hourCount = hourCount + ((Granularity - (hourCount Mod Granularity)) Mod Granularity)

What? You want another 3 days added? Why, that'll take the entire afternoon! Six hour granularity?? All week!!

--Rank

Brendan Kidwell · 2006-02-14 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
So, I take it that this would have been a good replacement?
dayCount = totalHours / 24
hourCount = totalHours % 24
Or does VB not support modulus?

My comment will probably be lost in all the noise, but does anyone know a good reference to answer "can this language to [x]?" questions? Might come in handy when we start playing what-if with the with the WTF.

For the record (and I'm too lazy to read the rest of the thread to see if I'm being redundant) Yes, VB/QBasic does and always had supported "a % b" meaning "a mod b".

2006-02-14 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Oh sorry was right int(expresion) reminded me that you can do this for short dayCount = totalHours \ 24
\ does do that my bad

Also, IIRC / doesn't round up, it rounds to the nearest even integer. Something about being more statistically correct...

RiX0R · 2006-02-14 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Who the crap is monitoring us! You guys act like we are gods I have watched yall all day talk about this and get the code wrong you are trying to type like you know every language.

THE FOLLOWING IS WRONG!!!! WTF

...

THE ABOVE IS WRONG!!!! WTF

...

THE FOLLOWING CODE IS HOW YOU WOULD DO IT. SHEESH!!!
In VB the integer actually auto rounds up so you need to do it this way so you get the correct days

dayCount = totalHours / 24 - 0.49
hourCount = totalHours Mod 24

Wow. Was all that heat really necessary for showing us another reason why you shouldn't be using VB?

2006-02-14 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Manni:
Anonymous:
Well, it's Visual Basic (QBasic?), what do you expect? :P

I was wondering where the VB haters were. Thanks for showing up guys. And you're absolutely right, VB has absolutely no constructs for dealing with this problem in a simplified way. Thank God all other languages automatically de-stupid your code when you try to do stuff like this. Because after all, this would NEVER happen in C#.

Or...could it? Hrm, I guess it's possible that the problem is the "programmer", and not the language. Nah, that's just crazy talk.

VB, much like generic beer and America's Funniest Home Videos is an enabling technology for stupid people. It allows stupid people to do stupid things on scale that they couldn't accomplish on their own. While using VB does not make you a dumb programmer, being a dumb programmer does make VB your weapon of choice. That is unless you really don't know what the fuck you are doing, then its PHP all the way.

And what specifically is your problem with PHP developers like me? Generalizing makes you look really, really dumb.

2006-02-14 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Anonymous:
Anonymous:
Manni:

Anonymous:
Well, it's Visual Basic (QBasic?), what do you expect? :P

I was wondering where the VB haters were. Thanks for showing up guys. And you're absolutely right, VB has absolutely no constructs for dealing with this problem in a simplified way. Thank God all other languages automatically de-stupid your code when you try to do stuff like this. Because after all, this would NEVER happen in C#.

Or...could it? Hrm, I guess it's possible that the problem is the "programmer", and not the language. Nah, that's just crazy talk.

VB, much like generic beer and America's Funniest Home Videos is an enabling technology for stupid people. It allows stupid people to do stupid things on scale that they couldn't accomplish on their own. While using VB does not make you a dumb programmer, being a dumb programmer does make VB your weapon of choice. That is unless you really don't know what the fuck you are doing, then its PHP all the way.

You forgot to put your flame suit on.

I figured most of the PHP guys wouldn't figure out how to get past the captcha thing.

And what specifically is your problem with PHP developers like me? Generalizing makes you look really, really dumb.

hank miller · 2006-02-14 Reply Admin

I think someone read all about Duff's device, and decided to try it. Unfortunately they (in typical WTF fashion) didn't understand either how it worked, or what the point was.

Personally I'd do it like this (in C, because so far I've managed to avoid VB)

int dayCount = 0; for (;hourCount < 13;++dayCount) { hourCount -=12; }

hourCount = (dayCount & 0x01) ? 12:0; dayCount = dayCount >> 1;

Which has a much great job security advantage - any id10t can maintain Noah's version, it is just tedious. I'm not sure that I can maintain my version, so I know only the best programmers could replace me - if you could get them

hank miller · 2006-02-14 Reply Admin

Sigh, isn't the forum wonderful?

I'm not going to try again, so I leave it up to your imaginations what line noise I can come up with to do this in such a way that only the smartest programmers could dare touch my code - and then only with a 10 foot pole. (or is it a 10 foot cattle prod?)

makomk · 2006-02-14 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
kipthegreat:

dayCount = totalHours \ 24

What The Fuck?

(captcha: DOOM .. is Zim in this forum software?)

I wish he was making this up. Presumably, they figured integer division was too hard for most people to grasp (not sure who "they" was; I know BBC Basic used "Div" for integer division rather than ). On the plus side, it means that the division operator behaves in the same way no matter the type of the operands (which is arguably a good thing).

makomk · 2006-02-14 Reply Admin

hank miller:
I think someone read all about Duff's device, and decided to try it. Unfortunately they (in typical WTF fashion) didn't understand either how it worked, or what the point was.
Personally I'd do it like this (in C, because so far I've managed to avoid VB)

int dayCount = 0; for (;hourCount &lt 13;++dayCount) { hourCount -=12; }

hourCount = (dayCount & 0x01) ? 12:0; dayCount = dayCount >> 1;

Which has a much great job security advantage - any id10t can maintain Noah's version, it is just tedious. I'm not sure that I can maintain my version, so I know only the best programmers could replace me - if you could get them

Fixed. (You need to use > and < in HTML - the WYSIWYG view isn't, BTW).

makomk · 2006-02-14 Reply Admin

makomk:
hank miller:
I think someone read all about Duff's device, and decided to try it. Unfortunately they (in typical WTF fashion) didn't understand either how it worked, or what the point was.

Personally I'd do it like this (in C, because so far I've managed to avoid VB)

int dayCount = 0;
for (;hourCount < 13;++dayCount) {
hourCount -=12;
}

hourCount = (dayCount & 0x01) ? 12:0;
dayCount = dayCount >> 1;

Which has a much great job security advantage - any id10t can maintain Noah's version, it is just tedious. I'm not sure that I can maintain my version, so I know only the best programmers could replace me - if you could get them

Fixed. (You need to use > and < in HTML - the WYSIWYG view isn't, BTW).

Well, almost. (The forum software is a real WTF - it was treating it as plaintext as far as inserting newlines is concerned, but HTML otherwise - not a combination I've seen it do before. Or possbily it was just stripping < and > Either way - WTF?!).

2006-02-14 Reply Admin

Of course, you could just avoid the whole issue of "whether" daycount is an integer by making sure it's one.

hourCount = totalHours % 24

dayCount = ( totalHours - hourCount) / 24

2006-02-14 Reply Admin

Actually, VB is starting to suck less these days. Now VB has short circuiting (OrElse, AndAlso), Continue, Shared, etc. Break was always there as "Exit Do", "Exit For", etc. It even has += and -= like "real" languages. Too bad it only took 15 years.

voodooc · 2006-02-14 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Anonymous:
Anonymous:
Manni:

Anonymous:
Well, it's Visual Basic (QBasic?), what do you expect? :P

I was wondering where the VB haters were. Thanks for showing up guys. And you're absolutely right, VB has absolutely no constructs for dealing with this problem in a simplified way. Thank God all other languages automatically de-stupid your code when you try to do stuff like this. Because after all, this would NEVER happen in C#.

Or...could it? Hrm, I guess it's possible that the problem is the "programmer", and not the language. Nah, that's just crazy talk.

VB, much like generic beer and America's Funniest Home Videos is an enabling technology for stupid people. It allows stupid people to do stupid things on scale that they couldn't accomplish on their own. While using VB does not make you a dumb programmer, being a dumb programmer does make VB your weapon of choice. That is unless you really don't know what the fuck you are doing, then its PHP all the way.

You forgot to put your flame suit on.

I figured most of the PHP guys wouldn't figure out how to get past the captcha thing.

I seriously ROFLd over this. As did all my coworkers, and all my friends on IRC.

Sincerely,

Not Gene Wirchenko

2006-02-14 Reply Admin

"thousands of codes"

lol. bit like all those idiots that think the plural of "Lego Brink" is "Legos".

BiggBru · 2006-02-14 Reply Admin

Alex Papadimoulis:

Really??? You can do that under a support call?!?! We'd love that; Noah said it would take thousands of codes to do that.

Not only would it take Noah thousands of codes to fix it, it would also take him thousands of times to finish the job. The company would have to pay him thousands of monies in compensation.

akrotkov · 2006-02-14 Reply Admin

osp70:
A Paula Translation:

private sub GetDaysAndHours(byval totalHours as integer, byref dayCount as integer, byref hourCount as integer)

   If totalHours = 0 then

      return

   end if

   hourCount += 1

   totalHours -= 1

   if hourCount = 24 then

     hourCount = 0

    dayCount += 1

   end if

   GetDaysAndHours(totalHours, hourCount, dayCount)

end sub

Simple and easy to read.

I <3 recursion.

unthinkableMayhem · 2006-02-14 Reply Admin

Anonymous:

VB, much like generic beer and America's Funniest Home Videos is an enabling technology for stupid people. It allows stupid people to do stupid things on scale that they couldn't accomplish on their own. While using VB does not make you a dumb programmer, being a dumb programmer does make VB your weapon of choice. That is unless you really don't know what the fuck you are doing, then its PHP all the way.

Nice :] That first sentence is the now the text of my screensaver. However I did have to modify it a bit because here in Australia "VB" is a type of generic beer and America's Funniest Home Videos has been renamed Australia's Funniest Home Videos and is hosted by a local idiot bimbo.

RobIII · 2006-02-14 Reply Admin

Anonymous:

Also, IIRC / doesn't round up, it rounds to the nearest even integer. Something about being more statistically correct...

It's called "Banker's Rounding" and actually documented. Fix() and Int() don't use it, CInt does.

RobIII · 2006-02-14 Reply Admin

Dang forum...

Link disappeared....

Second try: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banker%27s_rounding

RobIII · 2006-02-14 Reply Admin

And to be complete:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;196652

Don't you just love the "Edit post" button of this forum? [pi]

jsmith · 2006-02-14 Reply Admin

Gene Wirchenko:
Anonymous:
I would agree with you about VB having limitations, but I wouldn't say it sucked. In capable hands the language is powerfull, but that goes for any language. VB does do a lot of handholding and for an experianced developer this often got in the way, but sucking? I think not.

I wish VB6 had a few more features, but it was livable.

What got in the way for me was VB6 insisting on syntax checking each line. This is a bother if you want to change another line while the line you are on is not syntactically correct. The checking can be turned off though.

It was nothing compared to the travails of VC++6. Add a class. Sometimes, it would not show up. Try adding it again: error that it already exists. It could not be deleted either. Welcome to the Twilight Zone.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

VB.Net fixed that in 2001. Now, the line gets underlined in blue and an indicator shows up in the task list -- focus does not get pulled back to the line you just left. For me, it was one of the most welcome enhancements to the development environment.

2006-02-14 Reply Admin

Feh!
Nothing to do with VB (or PHP) - the blame here lies squarely with the intellectual giant doing the coding...

2006-02-15 Reply Admin

For some reason, I keep thinking that I know the person that did this. It sure looks like something he would've done.

Hmm, I wonder if any of my former co-workers know of this web site.

Schol-R-LEA · 2006-02-15 Reply Admin

All these flames, and no light being shed at all...

While I have my issues with VB, especially older versions of VB, I would never say that the language was completely without redeeming features. Hell, not even COBOL is completely devoid of interest. For setting up a data gather forms or several other types of Windows programs (esp. ones that are mostly front ends on existing functionality), VB is often the fastest and easiest way to put the program together. It also makes an excellent UI prototyping tool.

Most of my real problems have to do with Microsoft's habit of changing the language for marketing reasons; the rather misleading 'simplicity' of the basic syntax (the language is actually quite complex, and in big projects it is easier; the way the development environment IME encourages careless coding habits, especially in novices; the lack of a shell programming (especially since it means throwing the movices into GUI programming from the start); the poor exception handling mechanisms; and the code-under-form mess. Several of these were addressed in VB.Net, though in ways that broke a lot of legacy code; while I don't think porting most VB6 code to .Net is feasible, I would consider VB.Net to be the better choice for any new projects, even given the problems which I perceive in .Net Framework.

I might add that, apropos the quote in my .sig, while I think VB is particularly bad for teaching, I don't consider C/C++/C#, Java or Perl to be much better; they all have serious complications that a novice shoudn't have to deal with. It is my experience that most new coders can learn the sequence of HTML ->Python (or Ruby or Smalltalk or Scheme) ->assembly language (yes, assembly - it is very useful in understanding the way the computer really works) ->C++ in less time than it would take them to learn C++ alone, and they would have a better understanding of C++ than those who studied just the one language.

As for PHP, I simply don't know enough about it to judge it effectively, but from what I've heard, it's an excellent tool light web work - and not much more. I may be mistaken on this, and my definition of 'light' may be a good deal heavier than most other peoples, but that's the impression I currently have. C&CW.

In summation: Horses for courses, folks. Most tools have some place in one's toolkit, and knowing how to pick the right one is as important as knowing how to use each of them well.

felix · 2006-02-15 Reply Admin

Alex Papadimoulis:
Please program in more days

"I want more life!!!" - Replicant Roy Batty, Blade Runner

dhromed · 2006-02-15 Reply Admin

Isn't this called "arithmetics unrolling"?

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