The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2010-08-24 Reply Admin

hoodaticus:
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.

Currently being at uni studying IT while working full time as a developer i can confirm, it doesn't help AT ALL.

The most coding you get your hands on is a glorified "Hello World". Working full time however (and reading the daily WTF comments, believe it or not) have taught me about 50 times more...

2010-08-24 Reply Admin

I have had my Dim moment in the past, while chasing chicks with my four eyes in the college. If you don't know shit about pointers and references, it ain't worth it. Give it up or I'll need to find my shotgun.

2010-08-24 Reply Admin

LB:
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).

Teletypes would do the CR first then the LF. This allowed re-types of the same line to provide a bold or strike-through effect.

2010-08-24 Reply Admin

TRWTF is that the catch-all isn't FILE NOT FOUND.

2010-08-24 Reply Admin

Veldan:
hoodaticus:
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.
Currently being at uni studying IT while working full time as a developer i can confirm, it doesn't help AT ALL.

The most coding you get your hands on is a glorified "Hello World". Working full time however (and reading the daily WTF comments, believe it or not) have taught me about 50 times more...

Try taking a math class instead of that "IT" nonsense. "Technology" is about TECHNIQUES, and you will learn to codify them all if you study mathematics.

2010-08-24 Reply Admin

LB:
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).

Typewriters had an easy LF mechanism, used for creating paragraph marks and for double-spaced text.

TTY had an optimisied CR-LF sequence, which put the CR first to reduce the CR wait.

DOS (and later, Windows) mimicked TTY, not a typewriter. (Old UNIX users may remember TTY as the default name for the user interface too)

2010-08-25 Reply Admin

chron3:
If that's the way these new 'rockstar' developers write their code, then I'm rootin' for nuclear war and a chance for the cockroaches to strut their stuff...

Struts? Nah, I had enough of it already.

2010-08-25 Reply Admin

Ed:
That is some pretty messed up software: if it's in that much of a state to start with there's not much point staying, it'll only get worse as more "features" are added.

I disagree with the second part. It's definitely messed up but salvageable. A week to split it up into more manageable pieces would probably do wonders for supportability. After that you could optimize each case one by one. The software is neglected but works in principle.

The biggest WTF lies in the last paragraph. Nobody had/took the time to really fix the underlying problem. He should have checked in this:

Server.ScriptTimeout = 21600;
if (DateTime.Now < "today plus one week")
{
  Server.ScriptTimeout = 43200;
}

And just said: "I've put in a small fix that should hold for a while but I definitely need to do more." If they pulled him off he could certainly go back to it in a week...

Severity One · 2010-08-25 Reply Admin

Cbuttius:
And Excel is not a database.

It's also not a tool to write functional and non-functional requirements documents. However...

Cbuttius · 2010-08-25 Reply Admin

noneemouse:
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.

Interesting then because All Saints had British and Canadian members but didn't contain any Americans.

dkf · 2010-08-25 Reply Admin

toth:
Then how does your alphabet song work?

We don't use one, or at least didn't when I was at school. Mind you, I'd figured out a lot of the “reading” side of things by that point anyway. (Thank goodness for Asterix books!)

2010-08-25 Reply Admin

Chopper:
I found someone actually sane.

This is the real WTF. Everyone knows there is no such thing as a sane woman.

Bellinghman · 2010-08-25 Reply Admin

Ouch!:
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.

I'll pretend I didn't screw up and just point out that phonetically speaking, hearing of Joan Cusack and hearing of Joan Cusak would be pretty much the same.

SenTree · 2010-08-25 Reply Admin

toth:
SenTree:
causa:
<snip>...raze|rase
FTFY, for the benefit of our readers in Jolly Old England

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"?

Do you know, I'm not sure we had one when I was a lad. I think we just learnt the alphabet.

[EDIT] Sorry, didn't notice all the other responses before I posted this.

2010-08-25 Reply Admin

The Nerve:
Are you telling me that Visual Studio doesn't do page buffering? It's on the same technological level as Notepad?

Yes, an IDE that doesn't load all my code at once sounds wonderful. Whether or not my code compiles or not would depend on my scroll position in the document. Hey, at least it would promote the idea of small classes and functions. It would make large monitors a really big productivity boost too!

If your IDE can't handle source files with 25k lines, it's not the IDE that's at fault, it's you.

sota · 2010-08-25 Reply Admin

wtf:
I think the point was that he did the quick fix to see if the problem was with the time-out, and the "fix" was treated as an actual resolution of the issue by the management, who thought that "it runs"=="it's done".

Everyone at middle management and up?

2010-08-25 Reply Admin

I've been the Dan far too many times. Fortunately I'm quick, so I can sneak REAL fixes in under the radar.

2010-08-25 Reply Admin

JulianR:
The Nerve:
Are you telling me that Visual Studio doesn't do page buffering? It's on the same technological level as Notepad?

Yes, an IDE that doesn't load all my code at once sounds wonderful. Whether or not my code compiles or not would depend on my scroll position in the document. Hey, at least it would promote the idea of small classes and functions. It would make large monitors a really big productivity boost too!

If your IDE can't handle source files with 25k lines, it's not the IDE that's at fault, it's you.

I find your lack of Computer Science knowledge disturbing.

zelmak · 2010-08-25 Reply Admin

JulianR:
The Nerve:
Are you telling me that Visual Studio doesn't do page buffering? It's on the same technological level as Notepad?

Yes, an IDE that doesn't load all my code at once sounds wonderful. Whether or not my code compiles or not would depend on my scroll position in the document. Hey, at least it would promote the idea of small classes and functions. It would make large monitors a really big productivity boost too!

If your IDE can't handle source files with 25k lines, it's not the IDE that's at fault, it's you.

What about 55K lines? (I've refactored it a bit and it's now down to 10 files, the largest of which is 13K right now.)

2010-08-25 Reply Admin

dkf:
toth:
Then how does your alphabet song work?
We don't use one, or at least didn't when I was at school. Mind you, I'd figured out a lot of the “reading” side of things by that point anyway. (Thank goodness for Asterix books!)

Pre-school is when people usually learn the alphabet song int he states.

Even then I personally discouraged it as soon as it became clear that my 3-year-old thought elemeno was a single letter between K and P and that "and" was a letter between Y and Z[EE/ED]

2010-08-25 Reply Admin

sota:
wtf:
I think the point was that he did the quick fix to see if the problem was with the time-out, and the "fix" was treated as an actual resolution of the issue by the management, who thought that "it runs"=="it's done".

Everyone at middle management and up?

No, "the management". Not just the ones middle management up.

"it was [x]ed by the management, who believed y" entails two propositions: a) management (as a class - this is another kettle of fish, into which we will not get) [x]ed it b) management (again, as a class) believed y

You read clause b as "some members of management believed y", which is not how English treats that sentence, as any speaker of English knows, and this led you to try to repair my meaning back to what it already said. In future, please make sure you understand the sentences you correct.

ggeens · 2010-08-25 Reply Admin

Swedish tard:
Doesnt notepad actually refuse to open large files, redirecting you to whatever else there are in the way of editors/readers on the system?

Only on Windows 95 (maybe 98 as well). It was a 16-bit version that couldn't handle files larger that 64K. It proposed to open them in Wordpad.

Windows NT had a 32-bit Notepad from the start.

2010-08-25 Reply Admin

Weird, if you click on the line "The entire pile was topped off with a bow" you will get pwnd by pwnies. Weird

danixdefcon5 · 2010-08-25 Reply Admin

Veldan:
hoodaticus:
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.
Currently being at uni studying IT while working full time as a developer i can confirm, it doesn't help AT ALL.

The most coding you get your hands on is a glorified "Hello World". Working full time however (and reading the daily WTF comments, believe it or not) have taught me about 50 times more...

Ahhh... college. Where I learned about Queues and Stacks, and then watched one of my colleagues build the non-LIFO stack.

2010-08-25 Reply Admin

Ed:
1) Walk to coathanger.

Pick up coat.

Open door.

Walk out of door.

That is some pretty messed up software: if it's in that much of a state to start with there's not much point staying, it'll only get worse as more "features" are added.

No.

Increase timeout.
Keep mouth shut.
Become "rockstar".
Move on to next project as instructed.
When Export.aspx crashes again, increase timeout after spending 3 weeks "working on it" from home. Or from Jamaica. Or from Hooters.

2010-08-25 Reply Admin

yeehaw:
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."
Yeah but the real treat is that they apparently went from a "rock-star" to a "cowboy coder".
Instead of shoving the quick one-line fix to production right away, this should've been approached with an actual planned project to redesign and refactor it. Yeah maybe still do the quick-fix to shut up the complaining users, but the long-term goal should have been a better, more permanent solution.

Not necessarily. The fact that this script failed (due to timeout) could well have been a critical production issue. The fact that it was slow, and implemented in a horrible fashion is (apparently) a minor.

The real WTF is that he was apparently working in a place which had SIGNIFICANTLY WORSE PROBLEMS!

MarkJ · 2010-08-25 Reply Admin

cod3_complete:
I wish I could say that I haven't seen this kind of bull before. [1]Huge code base with zero documentation or comments but the deadline must be achieved in 4 hrs flat. Check. [2]No tests of any kind be they unit or integration tests. Check. [3] Technical Managers who lack the technical part and can't tell that the code is one massive clusterf#$@!!! Check. [4] Incompetent developers allowed to keep collecting a check even though they are NNPP's. Check.
Why why are these people allowed to stay gainfully employed??? Worse yet many of these schiesters are probably getting paid more than many of us. Truly sad...

I've spent at least half my career cleaning up this kind of garbage. It pays well, too. NNPP's help keep me employed!

hoodaticus · 2010-08-25 Reply Admin

Captain Normal Form:
Try taking a math class instead of that "IT" nonsense. "Technology" is about TECHNIQUES, and you will learn to codify them all if you study mathematics.

Yeah, I tested out of college Calculus I & II when I was 16. I was puking from the flu during the test, so I estimated what percentage of the points I was actually making and calculated a confidence interval that told me how many of the questions I would have to answer before I could go home.

I had 90% confidence that I could leave with only 2/3 of the test completed and still not have to take Calculus I and II in college. So I left with 2/3 of the test completed and drove home fast before the nausea returned, and it turned out I was right.

2010-08-25 Reply Admin

wtf:
sota:
wtf:
I think the point was that he did the quick fix to see if the problem was with the time-out, and the "fix" was treated as an actual resolution of the issue by the management, who thought that "it runs"=="it's done".

Everyone at middle management and up?

No, "the management". Not just the ones middle management up.

"it was [x]ed by the management, who believed y" entails two propositions: a) management (as a class - this is another kettle of fish, into which we will not get) [x]ed it b) management (again, as a class) believed y

You read clause b as "some members of management believed y", which is not how English treats that sentence, as any speaker of English knows, and this led you to try to repair my meaning back to what it already said. In future, please make sure you understand the sentences you correct.

Easy there fella. It's actually much simpler than all that. I wasn't repairing or correcting. I just misread the comment entirely and was trying to make a witty comment in return. It failed miserably. I guess I should let Bert handle that from now on.

2010-08-25 Reply Admin

Punit Damodara:

Sigh...that was me. Geez, I need to go back to lurking.

2010-09-01 Reply Admin

This limey has never seen the word "rase" "Raze" is perfectly acceptable for "burn to the ground"

2010-09-01 Reply Admin

Cbuttius:
Keeping the \r\n nonsense was Microsoft's biggest WTF.

No, it was using the backslash for the path separator, which needs to be escaped, when forward slash was fine, forcing the kind of madness that leads to C:\\Program Files\\etc....

2010-09-14 Reply Admin

lol/roftl...

ya, no doubt...

2010-10-14 Reply Admin

try this. http://svn.secondlife.com/trac/linden/browser/projects/2009/snowglobe/trunk/indra/newview/llvoavatar.cpp

Ok, largest function here in the file shown is only 550 lines or so, but i'm sure i haven't picked the worst one.

I'm sure this (luckily open source) single item of software alone could feed tdwtf for years.

2010-10-16 Reply Admin

"Dan patted Visual Studio's shoulder and tried to console it by closing every other application running, to free up some RAM. He and Visual Studio, both on the verge or crashing, struggled to read through the document together."

This was some of the greatest writing I have come across in a while. I loled... almost.

Large Blockage

Leave a comment on “Large Blockage”