The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2013-05-16 Reply Admin

Yup. The real WTF is the passive aggressive code reviewer. Review the damned code. It's not "interesting". It is stupid/wrong/bad form/error-prone/whatever. Interesting is a useless statement in this context. My belly-button lint is more interesting than this code. Point out the problem directly and suggest a better way to solve the problem.

2013-05-17 Reply Admin

TRWTF is cheques. BACS is already faster than a cheque clearing and FPS usually clears in minutes, if not seconds. Why would you go to the trouble of writing out a balance on a fancy bit of paper with dubious security coding, physically transport the damn thing, hand it to a bank (but not any bank, oh no! It has to be branch of YOUR bank!), who will then verify that it hasn't been written in crayon or has a decal from a model plane on it. And then they'll perform the exact same bank transfer that you could have done in the first place. The money from which will then turn up in your account maybe a few days later, maybe a few weeks later, or not at all, who knows?

WTF!

2013-05-17 Reply Admin

Paul Neumann:
Oh, and while we're discussing the consistent grammar and spelling rules of the American English language, where does the "i" in verbiage come from?

I don't suppose anybody cares at this point, but it comes from the source word (much as one would expect).

The source is middle French "verbier," which leads to "verbiage" in the same way as "porter" leads to "portage."

See Merriam-Webster, an excellent American dictionary with all the Noah-isms chopped out, for documentation.

2013-05-18 Reply Admin

If there is more comments than code you know there is WTF somewhere. Either in comments or in the code... And using commments instead of JIRA, or Confluence or any other documentations, or talking to to the developer may suggest problems as welll....

2013-05-20 Reply Admin

Terrified:
TRWTF is the number of people here who really don't think this code is TDWTF worthy. Perhaps they could show me where the hardcoded WordCase is used in the code. Perhaps they could explain subtracting an int from a string ("num - dollars"). Perhaps they could explain "zero" or basing a decision off of "dollars_result = uno" rather than "dollars = 1" or why even do that since most checks (or cheques if you prefer) just have "<dollars> and <cents>/100 dollars." Any one of these would make me say "WTF??" if I came across them. The fact that so much is crammed into such a short function is a massive WTF.

When internationalizing an application like this, one doesn't ask the regional language SME to write the code. When they go into Canada, you now need to find a CAN French coder? And who wrote the regression scripts to ensure that the US English didn't break? This was a mgt failure.

The code was fine and expected. The approach was wrong.

2013-05-21 Reply Admin

psuedonymous:
TRWTF is cheques. BACS is already faster than a cheque clearing and FPS usually clears in minutes, if not seconds. Why would you go to the trouble of writing out a balance on a fancy bit of paper with dubious security coding, physically transport the damn thing, hand it to a bank (but not any bank, oh no! It has to be branch of YOUR bank!), who will then verify that it hasn't been written in crayon or has a decal from a model plane on it. And then they'll perform the exact same bank transfer that you could have done in the first place. The money from which will then turn up in your account maybe a few days later, maybe a few weeks later, or not at all, who knows?
WTF!

Checks can be transferred offline. Wire transfers cannot. I still know some businesses that ONLY accept cash or check, because of either processing fees or the hassle of getting a card system installed (though these are mostly small businesses with aging owners) And they're more secure than cash. And they're good for mailing.
Did you not read the story? They're printed by a machine, not hand written.
Has to be a branch of your bank? Uh, I toss mine in the nearest ATM (of ANY bank), works just fine. Or deposit by mail. Or by taking a picture of it with my phone.
A few DAYS later? Man, your bank SUCKS! If I use an ATM or smartphone, I get the money in my account instantly. I can deposit and then withdraw that deposit in the same transaction. If I mail it, I get the money as soon as I go online or call and tell them how much I'm GOING TO send (and they then take that money back if they don't receive the check within 10 days.)

Direct deposit into my account is nice, but if you can't do that, PLEASE give me a check! Actually, I'd kinda prefer the check, it's easier to keep track of and literally takes me less than twenty seconds to deposit from anywhere with cell service.

2013-05-21 Reply Admin

Wait... the Mexicans call their currency "MONEDA NACIONAL" on their cheques? That must confuse the hell out of foreign banks when they go to cash them, especially in other Spanish-speaking countries. Que moneda nacional hablas de, chico?

2013-05-22 Reply Admin

Hmm...

narrator:
So the task to write the translation component was contracted out. After a week, the completed module was sent back to Adam, who ran it through some unit tests.

narrator:
Adam reviewed the source code for the module.

Adam:

' Does the coder expect that the check values are being manipulated as strings?

Apparently, there was no spec. And Adam's the person who's responsible for reviewing the code, so it seems we're missing a key piece of information.

2013-07-02 Reply Admin

' Nice conversion from a string to an integer to a decimal. No reason
' to go straight to decimal. Yes, the purpose is to get just the
' dollar portion, but really?
' Apparently neither Adam nor ¿Pedro? realise that CInt uses banker's rounding
' SpanishMoney("1.50") = "DOS PESOS CON -50/100 MONEDA NACIONAL"
  dollars = CInt(num)

Habla Currency

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