• Charles (unregistered)

    Why does this sound like good old: "All Your Base Are Belong To Us"??

  • (cs) in reply to no laughing matter
    no laughing matter:
    The rules are simple; to be exact there is only one rule: Troll or you will be trolled!
    At least some of us are able to rise above such puerility. I wish you luck, for you'll surely need it. ::eyeroll::
  • (cs) in reply to Nagesh
    Nagesh:
    No consultant company in India will take this risk of going to meeting without documentation.

    ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

  • foo (unregistered) in reply to Rick
    Rick:
    I got first post today. I merely failed to document it.
    Incorrect! My frist post was completed on the 14th.

    Also, "first" is futile.

  • foo (unregistered) in reply to no laughing matter
    no laughing matter:
    ubersoldat:
    OTOH, TRWTF is that the forum and the articles use different formats for commenting (just had to remove a whole lot of HTML code from my comment, so yes, I'm pissed). So I got ask, Alex, when are you moving this to Discourse?
    This site not only promises the daily WTF, it really delivers!
    • A Captcha with about ten different words and which already has been hacked to show whatever someone likes.
    • Two totally different forum systems.
    • BB-Code which is not BB-Code: a simple [s]will not work[/s], because that would be too easy not a WTF. Instead it has to be "color=black;text-decoration:line-through".
    • The most WTF of all, Akismet: It even forbids links to this very site, but is unable to detect the most generic of spam.

    So it really is to annoy users on purpose!

    You forgot:

    • A "Reply" button that nobody needs and that has trapped everbody at least once.
    • Checking pseudo-BB-code syntax when rendering (and on failure, showing all tags unparsed) instead of on input (so one could correct it in time)
    • More and more creative writing instead of actual WTFs.
    • The most WTF of all, Akismet. (Well, you didn't actually forget it, but it's mandatory to mention it again.)
  • Chris (unregistered)

    This sounds very close to recent conversations I had with a client. They insisted we deliver a certain piece of the project. I kept asking to see the requirements for that item. They said I should have created the requirements. I asked how I could have done that considering it is their requirements and to kindly tell me what would they like the item to do.

    They said I should know what it's supposed to do. I came back and said that I'd be happy to deliver what they wanted if they could only tell me that it was. They said they didn't know but that somehow I should know how their business operates and to please deliver the item.

    We went in circles like this for a few months. Project ended in flames.

  • justme (unregistered) in reply to Matt Westwood
    Matt Westwood:
    ptProgrammer:
    My Mum had a special muffin tin just for Yorkshire Pud. Heat tin in oven, while meat is still in, when you pull the meat out, spoon 1tsp of the fat off the bottom of the roasting pan, for each muffin tin, THEN pour the batter into the muffin tins, (maybe 2 tbs per muffin cup)

    That way you get gravy & Pudding.. Yummy.

    Meat ... muffin ... bun in oven ... gravy ... you're not talking about sex again, are you? Mmmmmmm ... food ... sex ... chicken .. .

    The chicken. Does is go with the food or the sex ? Is it alive or dead ? While sex and fried chicken can be considered creative and sex and live chicken is kinky , sex and dead chicken is just too far out there.

  • (cs) in reply to Chris
    Chris:
    This sounds very close to recent conversations I had with a client. They insisted we deliver a certain piece of the project. I kept asking to see the requirements for that item. They said I should have created the requirements. I asked how I could have done that considering it is *their* requirements and to kindly tell me what would they like the item to do.

    They said I should know what it's supposed to do. I came back and said that I'd be happy to deliver what they wanted if they could only tell me that it was. They said they didn't know but that somehow I should know how their business operates and to please deliver the item.

    This is modeled almost exactly in this Dilbert strip: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2006-01-29/

  • Dave (unregistered) in reply to Steve The Cynic
    Steve The Cynic:
    In Britain, of course, it is famous for being the weapon of choice of the practitioners of the martial art of Ecky Thump. And if you don't know what I am talking about, go look it up. Beware, because goggle will find pages containing 'icky' if you don't put "Ecky" in quotes.

    Well all I can say to that is that there's nowt wrong with owt what mitherin clutterbucks don't barley grummit!

  • gnasher729 (unregistered) in reply to Silverhill

    [quote user="Silverhill"][quote user="Chris"]This sounds very close to recent conversations I had with a client. They insisted we deliver a certain piece of the project. I kept asking to see the requirements for that item. They said I should have created the requirements. I asked how I could have done that considering it is their requirements and to kindly tell me what would they like the item to do.[/quote] It seems you had a client who knew that they couldn't write decent requirements. Writing good requirements for software is a difficult and time consuming task, so you should have offered to do that for them - at a good hourly rate. And how should you know how their business operates? Obviously by talking to the right people. Just as whatever company employee who would write requirements would have done.

  • ohansen (unregistered) in reply to Andrew

    The best situation is when there is a bug in the bug tracking SW, not allowing recording of the bug of the bug tracking.... You get my drift :-)

  • Anon-e-mouse (unregistered) in reply to The Count
    The Count:
    The RWTF is what happened to the fith consultant?
    The RWTF is what happened to the third letter in "fifth"?
  • Stig Hemmer (unregistered) in reply to Chris
    Chris:
    They said I should know what it's supposed to do. I came back and said that I'd be happy to deliver what they wanted if they could only tell me that it was. They said they didn't know but that somehow I should know how their business operates and to please deliver the item.

    It is a fact that customers doesn't know what they want. This is something that most IT education fails to teach people.

    As a developer you need to play (a lot more than) Twenty Questions with the customer to make a list of requirements.

    "If I gave you this blank piece of paper, would that fulfil the requirements?" "No!" "Why not?" "It does not do what we want it to do!" "In what way?" "Well, it isn't blue!" "So the thing should be blue?" "Well, yes, obviously!" "So, if I gave you a blue blank piece of paper, would that fulfil the requirements?" Etc, etc...

  • eric bloedow (unregistered)

    all these "black pudding" references reminded me of an old adventure game where one of the monsters was called "black pudding". it was vulnerable to Fire spells. i don't remember the name of the game...

Leave a comment on “Invasion of the Consultants”

Log In or post as a guest

Replying to comment #:

Log Out

« Return to Article