• (cs) in reply to SenTree
    SenTree:
    causa:
    Edward von Emacs:
    //Server.ScriptTimeout = 3600; //Server.ScriptTimeout = 10800; Server.ScriptTimeout = 21600; //six hours should probably be enough. If it keeps crashing, raise this.

    Should be:

    //Server.ScriptTimeout = 3600; //Server.ScriptTimeout = 10800; Server.ScriptTimeout = 21600; //six hours should probably be enough. If it keeps crashing, raze this.
    FTFY, for the benefit of our readers in Jolly Old England

    CAPTCHA 'causa' - I fixed it causa the limeys are always complaining about "American" spelling

    FTFY x 2

    This is one of the cases where the 'zed' variant is standard British English. The 'ess' variant is rarely seen, although I believe it is acceptable on either side of the pond.

    However, we limeys in Jolly Old England would take exception to the use of 'zee'.

    Then how does your alphabet song work?

    "Q-R-S, T-U-VED, W-X, Y and ZED"?

  • Limey (unregistered) in reply to toth
    toth:
    Then how does your alphabet song work?

    "Q-R-S, T-U-VED, W-X, Y and ZED"?

    Ahahahahaha, stupid Americans need a song to remember the alphabet!!

  • (cs) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    I've opened multi-GB files in Notepad. Don't ask me why, but I have and it works. Like most MS products, you just have to give it time.

    And can it read \n line endings properly?

    Keeping the \r\n nonsense was Microsoft's biggest WTF. Ok, they should have been backwardly compatible and read \r\n endings in existing files correctly, but had no real need to carry that forward into Windows.

  • (cs) in reply to Cbuttius
    Cbuttius:
    It's just the way software development has gone: immediate need has the priority over long-term maintainability. Nobody cares about 5 years time because you have to get the market share right now, and who knows whether you will still need the product anyway in 5 years time?

    Probably explains why "agile" is the big buzzword of today in IT development, whereas "OO" was 10 years ago.

    agile means being able to run out the door before anyone else on the project does

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Cbuttius
    Cbuttius:
    Anonymous:
    I've opened multi-GB files in Notepad. Don't ask me why, but I have and it works. Like most MS products, you just have to give it time.
    And can it read \n line endings properly?
    Nope, not a chance! I agree with you entirely, for a text editor to not be able to handle a common form of line termination is unforgivable. This would be so easy to fix as well, but I doubt we'll ever see it.
  • (cs)

    Let's see here... huge, unmaintainable pile of spaghetti code thrown together by "rockstar" lead developer who didn't think at all but just typed away, handed off to new team member who things "OHMYGAWD what did I get myself into?!"

    Standard operating procedure at most businesses, I would think. And THAT is the real WTF.

  • Larry (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    Cbuttius:
    Anonymous:
    I've opened multi-GB files in Notepad. Don't ask me why, but I have and it works. Like most MS products, you just have to give it time.
    And can it read \n line endings properly?
    Nope, not a chance! I agree with you entirely, for a text editor to not be able to handle a common form of line termination is unforgivable. This would be so easy to fix as well, but I doubt we'll ever see it.
    TRWTF is that typewriters do not have a newline key.
  • (cs) in reply to Astartee
    Astartee:
    Sorry to disappoint you, Remy, but I have never even heard of a Joan Cusak.

    Signed : One of the (hopefully more than two) female TDWTF readers.

    We can't help your ignorance.

    (For what it's worth, she's been nominated twice for an Oscar, so she's not totally obscure. Go check IMDB for more details.

  • (cs) in reply to Limey
    Limey:
    toth:
    Then how does your alphabet song work?

    "Q-R-S, T-U-VED, W-X, Y and ZED"?

    Ahahahahaha, stupid Americans need a song to remember the alphabet!!

    As opposed to knuckle cracks from rulers and pouring of derision.

  • Ronald M (unregistered) in reply to Larry
    Larry:
    TRWTF is that typewriters do not have a newline key.

    Some typewriters did - the selectrics; not inline on the keyboard, but off to the side.

  • Edward von Emacs, VI (unregistered) in reply to frits
    frits:
    Limey:
    toth:
    Then how does your alphabet song work?

    "Q-R-S, T-U-VED, W-X, Y and ZED"?

    Ahahahahaha, stupid Americans need a song to remember the alphabet!!

    As opposed to knuckle cracks from rulers and pouring of derision.

    Poems! The laddie fancies himself a poet!

  • (cs)

    I can't even begin to tell you guys how much I have to deal with crap like this every day. When i came to my new job there was not a single class library, not a single namespace, not a single codebehind file, the database had 100 tables with 0 relationships, 0 null columns... and the biggest WTF is that the guy doesn't believe in source control... or anything else that didn't exist 15 years ago when he learned asp. Having an aspx like this that takes 6 hours is normal at this crappy job.

  • Kim (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    Hey, there's nothing wrong with Joan Cusack, as long as you like your women a touch on the mental side (and let's be honest, who doesn't?).
    Are there any other kind to choose from?

    When I was 20, I had this long list of attributes I was looking for in a woman. By the time I was 30, I had narrowed the list down to one thing: sane.

  • Ralph (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    Like most MS products, you just have to give it time.
    I've been waiting 30 years for MS to get a clue. How much longer do you suggest?
  • (cs) in reply to wtf
    wtf:
    Mr. S.:
    JamesQMurphy:
    I really hate those management/HR types who use words like "rockstar" instead of "arrogant self-serving vodka-swilling loner who can't code his way out of a paper bag."

    Isn't that the definition of a rockstar?

    CAPTCHA: similis - a lot like syphilis

    As in, it's beginning to look a lot like syphilis?

    Someone's been digging around in old Shumash burial mounds again?

    (Virtual fanboy points to the frist one who corrects me about what sort of excavation they were digging...)

  • (cs) in reply to toth
    toth:
    Then how does your alphabet song work?

    "Q-R-S, T-U-VED, W-X, Y and ZED"?

    Americans (and Canadians presumably) sing:

    "Flexing vocabulary runs right through me, the alphabet runs right from A to Zee"

    The British sing:

    "Sometimes vocabulary runs through my head, the alphabet runs right from A to Zed".

    Suits girl-groups with members from both sides of the Atlantic...

  • Ouch! (unregistered) in reply to Bellinghman
    Bellinghman:
    Astartee:
    Sorry to disappoint you, Remy, but I have never even heard of a Joan Cusak.

    Signed : One of the (hopefully more than two) female TDWTF readers.

    We can't help your ignorance.

    (For what it's worth, she's been nominated twice for an Oscar, so she's not totally obscure. Go check IMDB for more details.

    That would've been Joan Cusack.

  • veniam (unregistered) in reply to wtf
    wtf:
    Borken:
    The Nerve:
    Are you telling me that Visual Studio doesn't do page buffering? It's on the same technological level as Notepad?
    Yeah, with Windows, you don't have to write a virus. You don't have to corrupt a driver. All you have to do is trick someone into opening a large file in Notepad, and your entire operating system grinds to a halt.

    Great trick, that. "Haha! I've got you! Now my entire system has ground to ... waitaminnit ... can we try this again?"

    That's why you need to feel the side, see if the computer is frozen.

  • (cs)

    I have seen more than my share of such projects over the years, sadly. Even in the days of Applesoft BASIC, there were better ways to organize a program than this - at the very least, one could use GOSUB or call out to another program file. I have had many hours of both pleasure (in fixing things) and frustration (that it got that way in the first place) refactoring such code, often at the same time.

    Perhaps the worst was a suppose 'operating system' (basically a glorified shell) which a 14-year-old coder-wannabee had posted on DevShed's C Programming board. The main() function was some 750 lines long if memory serves, and while there were in fact some other functions in the mix, it was still dominated by this one function filled with block after block of copy-and-pasted switches. It was in some ways an impressive achievement for such a young coder, but it was also some of the worst code I'd even seen (including programs written in languages such as BrainF*ck and INTERCAL).

  • Bert Glanstron (unregistered) in reply to frits
    frits:
    Limey:
    toth:
    Then how does your alphabet song work?

    "Q-R-S, T-U-VED, W-X, Y and ZED"?

    Ahahahahaha, stupid Americans need a song to remember the alphabet!!

    As opposed to knuckle cracks from rulers and pouring of derision.

    You are an idiot and should be banned from your mommy and daddy’s modem.
  • noneemouse (unregistered) in reply to Cbuttius
    Cbuttius:
    toth:
    Then how does your alphabet song work?

    "Q-R-S, T-U-VED, W-X, Y and ZED"?

    Americans (and Canadians presumably) sing:

    "Flexing vocabulary runs right through me, the alphabet runs right from A to Zee"

    The British sing:

    "Sometimes vocabulary runs through my head, the alphabet runs right from A to Zed".

    Suits girl-groups with members from both sides of the Atlantic...

    Canadians say zed.

    captcha: paratus .. an experimental parrot.

  • (cs) in reply to Herby

    Why not just raise it to 2147483648 and have done with it?

  • (cs) in reply to Kim
    Kim:
    Anonymous:
    Hey, there's nothing wrong with Joan Cusack, as long as you like your women a touch on the mental side (and let's be honest, who doesn't?).
    Are there any other kind to choose from?

    When I was 20, I had this long list of attributes I was looking for in a woman. By the time I was 30, I had narrowed the list down to one thing: sane.

    What a coincidence.

    I'm 51 now and still looking.

  • 24H blockage (unregistered) in reply to Cbuttius
    Cbuttius:
    Herby:
    The timeout was raised from 21600 to 43200 in the example. Perhaps raising it it the final limit of 86400 would have been the best solution. If they run it once per day and it crashes with that timeout, then they WILL need to do some "refactoring".

    Time will tell (in more ways than one!).

    Make that 82,800 to take care of the one day in the year that we lose an hour shifting to daylight savings time.

    I think the developer thought that he'd have the whole thing "fixed" by the time they needed to raise it above 12 hours but subsequently was about to be taken off the job to work on something "proper".

    TRWTF is that both of you think a report cannot take more than 1 day to run.

  • Alex (unregistered) in reply to rodmjay
    rodmjay:
    I can't even begin to tell you guys how much I have to deal with crap like this every day. When i came to my new job there was not a single class library, not a single namespace, not a single codebehind file, the database had 100 tables with 0 relationships, 0 null columns... and the biggest WTF is that the guy doesn't believe in source control... or anything else that didn't exist 15 years ago when he learned asp. Having an aspx like this that takes 6 hours is normal at this crappy job.

    Reading this made me want to scream. I feel for you

  • (cs) in reply to Jellineck

    Nope, a VB programmer would have used VB code. The "switch" statement does not exist in VB. In VB it is the "Select Case...End Select" block.

    I'm glad I don't have to work with anyone who would even think of putting all of the code for an ASP.NET site in the ASPX files.

    I don't have to worry about that though. We don't use Windows.

  • SaneIsWhatYouMakeOfIt (unregistered) in reply to da Doctah
    da Doctah:
    Kim:
    Anonymous:
    Hey, there's nothing wrong with Joan Cusack, as long as you like your women a touch on the mental side (and let's be honest, who doesn't?).
    Are there any other kind to choose from?

    When I was 20, I had this long list of attributes I was looking for in a woman. By the time I was 30, I had narrowed the list down to one thing: sane.

    What a coincidence.

    I'm 51 now and still looking.

    Aliens from another frame- expecting sane/perfect, whether male or female, here?

  • (cs)

    Hey, this sounds like that five-figure system that a certain company bought, which was to be done in that new-fangled C# .NET language.

    Except it was in VB (first FAIL), sticking code in the aspx instead of using CodeBehind (second FAIL) and prone to SQL Injection (third and worst FAIL). Oh, and unlike this "brillant" code, it didn't even close the SQL connections. This last problem, coupled with crappy .NET/ODBC connection management meant that the site would bring down both IIS and SQL Server after the 10th concurrent user tried to load the main site.

  • (cs) in reply to Bert Glanstron
    Bert Glanstron:
    frits:
    Limey:
    toth:
    Then how does your alphabet song work?

    "Q-R-S, T-U-VED, W-X, Y and ZED"?

    Ahahahahaha, stupid Americans need a song to remember the alphabet!!

    As opposed to knuckle cracks from rulers and pouring of derision.

    You are an idiot and should be banned from your mommy and daddy’s modem.

    My mother was a queen, my dad I've never seen, I was never meant to be.

    Plus we don't have a modem (ADSL).

  • (cs) in reply to frits
    frits:
    Plus we don't have a modem (ADSL).

    I hate to break it to you so suddenly, as it might shock you, but ADSL... requires a modem, in fact. Honest.

    And if you've meant that you had no modem at all, ADSl included, then, well, I can lend you one just for this occasion.)

  • (cs) in reply to Jakob H. Poulsen
    Jakob H. Poulsen:
    After reading this, I actually thought to myself: "I would love to refactor that!"

    I inherited a code base maybe not quite as bad as the one from this story, but close. I actually looked forward to refactoring it (some fetish with creating order in chaos).

    The only problem: the original 'developer' was still around and he actually thought copy/pasting blocks of code around and putting hundreds of lines of code between the body and head tag in some page was actually a good idea.

    For the first 4 years orso, I was only fighting his way of doing things and had to keep defending myself against the manager for 'upsetting' this original developer. At the end this guy quit, new (sane) people were hired who also declared the code was an utter mess, and we finally started with some real refactoring. Two painful years later, the code finally started to look relatively sane.

    The real WTF; I didn't quit the first day after seeing what utter pile of crap the code was. The only plus side, at the end the work was okay and challenging, but till this day I can't understand what I was thinking those first four years.

  • LB (unregistered) in reply to phleabo
    phleabo:
    The next day, he was elbow deep in "Export.aspx"'s entrails when Steve interrupted. "Hey, Dan!" Steve beamed. "Great work on fixing that bug. I saw your check-in, gave it a spin, and promoted it to production. Fantastic turn-around time on that. Look, since you're done, we've got a lot of other projects that could use some TLC- can I move you onto one of those?"
    So to summarize:
    1. Dan checked in a quick patch
    2. Dan started to refactor
    3. Steve saw the checkin and promoted it to production
    4. Steve asked Dan to move on to other things.
    I wouldn't have a problem with #3. If the timeout workaround can help keep the software from crashing long enough for him to work out a fix for that mess of code, then the longer timeout should be in production until the fixed version can be completed and deployed. The problem lies in #4. That mess needs to be cleaned up, and it doesn't sound like Dan is going to be allowed to do so.

    For all the complaints about terrible coders who would write a mess like this one, I'm guessing the previous coders never wanted to write it that way. They got stuck just like Dan did here, only allowed enough time to make a minor adjustment to the chaos but not enough time to fix it. A long enough series of these minor-adjustment-only updates is what turned it into the mess Dan found. The story even mentions that the other developers know it needs the rewriting that nobody has been allowed to do:

    "but some of our other developers suggest that you try and do a little 'refactoring'?" Steve used air-quotes and a look of incomprehension to convey the question. "They said it should help make maintenance cheaper. Is that right?"
  • (cs) in reply to DocBrown
    DocBrown:
    frits:
    Plus we don't have a phone, err, um non-DSL modem (ADSL).

    I hate to break it to you so suddenly, as it might shock you, but ADSL... requires a modem, in fact. Honest.

    And if you've meant that you had no modem at all, ADSl included, then, well, I can lend you one just for this occasion.)

    Yeah I dropped the ball on that one.

  • (cs) in reply to smbarbour
    smbarbour:
    Nope, a VB programmer would have used VB code. The "switch" statement does not exist in VB. In VB it is the "Select Case...End Select" block.

    I'm glad I don't have to work with anyone who would even think of putting all of the code for an ASP.NET site in the ASPX files.

    I don't have to worry about that though. We don't use Windows.

    In JSP files one can do the exact same sad thing. That's why Facelets is so great. You can't put code in them, only UI components, so you'll lose at least one class of idiots. Sadly, there is no limit to how many idiots there are on this world and how many ways people can come up with to do idiot things.

  • Rockstar (unregistered)
    1. Idiot managers love rockstars
    2. All managers are idiots
    3. Produce massive rockstar WTF
    4. Profit!!!
    5. Move on to next (higher paying) job before they figure out it's unmaintainable (6. Don't worry; they'll never learn)
  • Chopper (unregistered) in reply to Kim
    Kim:
    Anonymous:
    Hey, there's nothing wrong with Joan Cusack, as long as you like your women a touch on the mental side (and let's be honest, who doesn't?).
    Are there any other kind to choose from?

    When I was 20, I had this long list of attributes I was looking for in a woman. By the time I was 30, I had narrowed the list down to one thing: sane.

    When I was 20 my list only included tits and ass. Then the mental part got to me and I found someone actually sane. The best part, her job requires regular psychological tests to make sure she's sane enough to do her job (police dispatch). I think I'll keep her until they say otherwise.

  • LB (unregistered) in reply to Larry
    Larry:
    Anonymous:
    Cbuttius:
    And can it read \n line endings properly?
    Nope, not a chance! I agree with you entirely, for a text editor to not be able to handle a common form of line termination is unforgivable. This would be so easy to fix as well, but I doubt we'll ever see it.
    TRWTF is that typewriters do not have a newline key.
    On manual typewriters, linefeed is a lever rather than a key. And it always did the linefeed first. After that, if you continued to push it farther, it would do the carriage return. If DOS (and later, Windows) were mimicking a typewriter, I'd expect them to end lines with \n\r rather than \r\n. That reversal is a minor but weird little WTF in amongst some much worse WTFs (such as Notepad still not understanding a simple \n ending).
  • Nome de Plume (unregistered) in reply to Dan
    Dan:
    The Real WTF is that a comment accurately told the developer what to do to correct the problem. Sure the code is crappy from an aesthetic sense, but it gets the job done, and Dan is on to a new project. BTW I am not the Dan from the story.

    A program that runs and holds database connections for hours does not get the job done. How many other projects can't use the database, or disk, resources while this thing hogs them?

    At some point productivity becomes more than a buzzword.

  • Darth Dead Horse (unregistered) in reply to Nome de Plume
    Nome de Plume:
    Dan:
    The Real WTF is that a comment accurately told the developer what to do to correct the problem. Sure the code is crappy from an aesthetic sense, but it gets the job done, and Dan is on to a new project. BTW I am not the Dan from the story.

    A program that runs and holds database connections for hours does not get the job done. How many other projects can't use the database, or disk, resources while this thing hogs them?

    At some point productivity becomes more than a buzzword.

    I have buzzworded your productivity...Pray I don't buzzword it any further.

  • Mr A (unregistered) in reply to Cbuttius
    And Excel is not a database.

    Actually, a spreadsheet can be a database. Why not? If you have an app that needs simple tabular data, a spreadsheet is a perfectly acceptable database. I've seen minute apps storing a few dozen records in Oracle and DB2 before now. Excel might not scale like a relational DBMS but if you don't need to scale, then why try.

  • hoodaticus (unregistered) in reply to Ryan
    Ryan:
    Waterfall has nothing to do with it. It's more like...if it was developed by a programmer who was worth his salt. This is simply a lack of first year college training...

    As a self-taught programmer, I can assure you that college has NOTHING whatsoever to do with whether or not a programmer will produce utter shit like this.

    We just had to let go a fresh out-of-college programmer with a few years of work experience because he couldn't keep up with the self-taught developers here. We have been laughing and sighing at his code for weeks. As I refactor and basically suck the stupid out of his entire codebase, I send about three internal "Hey, look at this WTF" emails every day.

    Samples from today's emails:

    For x=0 to count
     conn.open 'open the SqlConnection
     Dim cmd As New SqlCommand("UPDATE Table SET Field='Flagged' WHERE Field='Unflagged'", conn)
Next

    And that is just the tip of the iceberg. I have seen vast numbers of one-dimensional arrays (one per field!) for storing record sets, which take seconds to fill and then end up not getting used anywhere, in a three-page-long function. I have seen classes import other classes from the same project - for no reason. DataAdapters used for returning single scalars from a query. And that's not even a tenth of the WTFery I saw today.

    If college helped you, I'm glad. But I suspect that programming talent is inborn.

  • hoodaticus (unregistered) in reply to Mr A
    Mr A:
    And Excel is not a database.

    Actually, a spreadsheet can be a database. Why not? If you have an app that needs simple tabular data, a spreadsheet is a perfectly acceptable database. I've seen minute apps storing a few dozen records in Oracle and DB2 before now. Excel might not scale like a relational DBMS but if you don't need to scale, then why try.

    I think he meant to say that it's not a relational database.

  • rerogo (unregistered) in reply to Mr A
    Mr A:
    And Excel is not a database.

    Actually, a spreadsheet can be a database. Why not? If you have an app that needs simple tabular data, a spreadsheet is a perfectly acceptable database. I've seen minute apps storing a few dozen records in Oracle and DB2 before now. Excel might not scale like a relational DBMS but if you don't need to scale, then why try.

    And then five years later, when it has had to scale, you wind up having to use a real database anyway.

  • Lifewish (unregistered) in reply to Jakob H. Poulsen
    After reading this, I actually thought to myself: "I would love to refactor that!"

    Excuse me while I go throw up.

    I'm currently refactoring a large Excel/VBA program that is built entirely around subs operating on global variables and arrays. Neither the subs nor the variables are particularly easy to understand. Knock yourself out.

    Actually, can you knock me out too while you're at it? It would hurt my brain less.

  • Ralph (unregistered) in reply to rerogo
    rerogo:
    Mr A:
    And Excel is not a database.

    Actually, a spreadsheet can be a database. Why not? If you have an app that needs simple tabular data, a spreadsheet is a perfectly acceptable database. I've seen minute apps storing a few dozen records in Oracle and DB2 before now. Excel might not scale like a relational DBMS but if you don't need to scale, then why try.

    And then five years later, when it has had to scale, you wind up having to use a real database anyway.

    ...at which point you have to refactor this massive clusterfart, bringing us full circle back to today's WTF.

    Just go ahead and create a mysql database, pleeeeease! What does it take, about 30 seconds? Go on, you can do it. Or you don't deserve to work in IT.

  • tego (unregistered) in reply to rerogo
    rerogo:
    Mr A:
    And Excel is not a database.

    Actually, a spreadsheet can be a database. Why not? If you have an app that needs simple tabular data, a spreadsheet is a perfectly acceptable database. I've seen minute apps storing a few dozen records in Oracle and DB2 before now. Excel might not scale like a relational DBMS but if you don't need to scale, then why try.

    And then five years later, when it has had to scale, you wind up having to use a real database anyway.

    So just write an Access "program" to harness said spreadsheet via linked tables. What, you mean that isn't how ALL home-grown mission critical applications are built? ;-)

  • bedazzled by starry things (unregistered)

    HFS, time to let the ship sink. Today I spent 5 (five) hours time figuring out and explaining a garbage system/process and finally sending a one line 'this is why' (its fu'ing sh't) response. Sink'em all; walk out; leave; quit; just do it.

    Rant over, now to catch my train...

  • Rockstar_Coder (unregistered)

    Okay, to all of you blasting the "rock-star" coder away, here's how it went:

    I came in, inherited this garbage from the Boss's son. I was constantly too busy with the other 18 "mission critical" projects they were throwing me on while I was trying to come up with a proper analysis of this horror. In order to keep the users quiet while I finished the other projects, I tossed in a higher timeout and left a comment that any half-wit could pick up and "fix" in a minute or less before getting to the real refactoring. I never got a chance to re-visit this before I left for greener pastures. Believe me when I say: any company in the world is a better place to work...

  • Veldan (unregistered) in reply to Kim
    Kim:
    Anonymous:
    Hey, there's nothing wrong with Joan Cusack, as long as you like your women a touch on the mental side (and let's be honest, who doesn't?).
    Are there any other kind to choose from?

    When I was 20, I had this long list of attributes I was looking for in a woman. By the time I was 30, I had narrowed the list down to one thing: sane.

    You waited until 30 to do that? I had two "mental hospital grade" crazy ex's and my only attribute dropped to sane at the tender age of 21 :P

  • Your friendly neighborhood <philosopher> (unregistered)

    "To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer." -Paul Ehrlich

    In most countries you'll need a license to practise medical science...Hesus Conzales J, not the other way. I'm agnostic..

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