• (cs) in reply to .*
    Anonymous:
    Anonymous:
    a student of politology


    WTF? There's a name for the study of Poland?

    He meant "political science".
  • Curious George (unregistered)

    Has anyone else noticed the trend with most of the WTF's.   The majority are down to overseas developers.  Perhaps we should stop sending aid to the poor countries where these fellows reside and instead send them some free programming courses.


    Moral of the story

    "If you pay less, you get less".

  • (cs) in reply to Curious George
    Anonymous:
    Has anyone else noticed the trend with most of the WTF's.   The majority are down to overseas developers.  Perhaps we should stop sending aid to the poor countries where these fellows reside and instead send them some free programming courses.

    I don't think they are bad because they live in a relatively bad country. They are bad because they are bad by any standard. They wouldn't find a job where results matter. But those companies that sell cheap personal months don't even want good programmers.

    "If you pay less, you get less".

    While it's fair to assume that paying (say) 20% less in a cheaper county can still give you reasonable results, it's definitely stupid to assume the same for 95% less or so.
    (But then, the communication overhead more than likely eats those 20% faster than expected...)
  • Wyrm (unregistered) in reply to Wayne
    "...demoing the code to clients before you've had any opportunity to try it yourself is just insane."

    Or a very risky way to crush any future outsourcing. Just showing the mess to the suits probably wouldn't have been enough. Showing it to the customers, however....
  • qbolec (unregistered) in reply to ammoQ

    ammoQ:
    Anonymous:
    Anonymous:
    a student of politology


    WTF? There's a name for the study of Poland?

    He meant "political science".

    Well, I've used "politology" since it sounds like Polish "Politologia" and after consulting google "define: politology" and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politology I thought it's exactly the word I'm looking for - yes I ment political science if that makes any difference. It's quite popular in Poland, but it has nothing to do with the name of our country. We do however have a science about our language called "polonistyka".

  • (cs) in reply to qbolec
    qbolec:

    Well, I've used "politology" since it sounds like Polish "Politologia" and after consulting google "define: politology" and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politology I thought it's exactly the word I'm looking for - yes I ment political science if that makes any difference. It's quite popular in Poland, but it has nothing to do with the name of our country. We do however have a science about our language called "polonistyka".



    It's funny. If you ask google for politology, you find several web sites in English that use that term, but it looks like (almost) all of them are non-native speakers. It's probably a common mistake of ESL speakers, because it's politology (Politologie, politologia etc.) in many other languages.
  • jay (unregistered) in reply to Volmarias
    Volmarias:
    Anonymous:
    It's like those guy who used to write assembly before assemblers existed, and they compiled by hand, shouting the opcodes at each other across the room to keep each other in check.

    "OH YEAH? MOVL $MYCOCK, %YOURMOM"

    Shouting opcodes across the room sounds like a terrible, terrible idea. No one had the forethought to write down the list and photocopy (or in those days, mimeograph) it and distribute it?



    MOVL?  Let's not kid ourselves... MOVB is more applicable here  :p

  • tq (unregistered) in reply to pfy
    pfy:
    Anonymous:

    Sounds like they outsourced this job to Elbonia!

    Seriously, part of the blame for this WTF falls on Ian Mc.


    I'm not pinning the [blame] on Ian Mc, though. It sounds more like a PHB saying something like "You're giving the demo to the client tomorrow. What do you mean, you haven't seen the software yet? It's been thoroughly tested by proficient coders, so obviously it can't go wrong. No, we can't reschedule, or we'll miss the deadline and lose the deal. This negative attitude of yours isn't going to look good on your performance review, you know".


    That's when Ian goes to PHB's boss.
  • .* (unregistered) in reply to qbolec
    Anonymous:
    Well, I've used "politology" since it sounds like Polish "Politologia" and after consulting google "define: politology" and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politology I thought it's exactly the word I'm looking for - yes I ment political science if that makes any difference. It's quite popular in Poland, but it has nothing to do with the name of our country. We do however have a science about our language called "polonistyka".


    You've just discovered an annoying thing about the Web. The Google search gets its definition from Wikipedia, and Wikipedia's 'Politology' site redirects to 'Political Science'.

    Google's dictionary tends to focus more on getting a good defnition at any cost, rather than checking if a word exists. So if you're looking up a word that doesn't exist, it's great. If you're trying to verify a word does exist, it sucks.
    <font size="-1"></font>
  • (cs) in reply to ammoQ
    ammoQ:
    Anonymous:
    Has anyone else noticed the trend with most of the WTF's.   The majority are down to overseas developers.  Perhaps we should stop sending aid to the poor countries where these fellows reside and instead send them some free programming courses.

    I don't think they are bad because they live in a relatively bad country. They are bad because they are bad by any standard. They wouldn't find a job where results matter. But those companies that sell cheap personal months don't even want good programmers.

    "If you pay less, you get less".

    While it's fair to assume that paying (say) 20% less in a cheaper county can still give you reasonable results, it's definitely stupid to assume the same for 95% less or so.
    (But then, the communication overhead more than likely eats those 20% faster than expected...)

    I've heard a lot of speculation by "experts" on this topic, and I've heard  the following theories advanced (which I'll rank in the order that I give credence to them):
    1. Various cultures place more importance on rote memorization than does [western Society|America|Silicon Valley|your name here]. Memorization has lttle value in sofware development compared to, say, critical thinking. We end up with people who have been vetted by their own educational systems, and possibly by their own working environments.
    2. The cream of the crop from countries with whom we outsource are already here.
    3. Management on both sides of the outsourcing agreement have no idea what they are doing.
    4. It is just a selection bias or ethnocentrism.


  • (cs) in reply to RyuO
    RyuO:

    • Various cultures place more importance on rote memorization than does [western Society|America|Silicon Valley|your name here]. Memorization has lttle value in sofware development compared to, say, critical thinking. We end up with people who have been vetted by their own educational systems, and possibly by their own working environments.

    Cultural differences are obviously a source of problems for outsourcing. On the other hand, you could say some cultures place more importance on sedulity, that makes them the perfect workers for boring routine jobs.

    • The cream of the crop from countries with whom we outsource are already here.

    Most outsourcing is routine work doesn't require the cream of the crop. Many people would rather be relatively rich at home than relatively poor abroad, even if they would earn more in absolute numbers abroad. Many People from eastern Europe (e.g. Poland, Slovakia) would probably prefer to work in Western Europe, where they are much closer to their homeland.

    • Management on both sides of the outsourcing agreement have no idea what they are doing.

    Only 50% true. The managers in the cheap countries definitely know what they are doing: making quick cash. Get the contract, get the money, deliver whatever the cheapest guys you could get produce.

    • It is just a selection bias or ethnocentrism.

    I think we have enough examples here to disprove that.
  • Anony Moose (unregistered) in reply to tq

    Anonymous:
    That's when Ian goes to PHB's boss.

    Who, in turn, can be relied on to defend his protege against the abusive and negative employees who clearly lacks team spirit.

    Given a sufficiently toxic workplace, you either do what you're told or find another job. If it was me, I'ld have seen it coming and be polishing my resume on the side, but in the real world you do what management tells you to do, even if it's stupid.

    PHBs are hired by guys with pointy hair - a good boss would have already seen the bad hair and done something about it. More often, the pointy hair starts right at the top with a non-technical manager who doesn't respect the technical staff. (Good managers don't need to be coders, but they do have to respect the people working for them.)

  • Matt (unregistered)

    ... Could have been worse, they could have put the paper with the code on a wooden table, taken a photo, scanned it in... ;)


  • csrster (unregistered) in reply to TomCo
    TomCo:
    GoatCheez:

    After the embarrassing gaffe at the client was finally over, Ian inquired with the overseas coders to see if they even tested the code before delivering it. "Of course," the lead programmer proclaimed, "we tested it on paper."

    Unbelievably they didn't have COBOL or Oracle installed on their development workstations or servers.



    <rant>
    And that's where I would buy a plane ticket to wherever the hell they were, buy a baseball bat at the nearest store, and proceed to show them what happens to people who test "digital" things via "analog" methods.

    If this honestly happened to me, I don't see how I could keep myself from killing the lead developer. People like that are a discrace to software engineers everywhere.
    </rant>

    Hopefully they have baseball bats.  Or maybe a cricket bat will do?
    [image]



    The red marks, of course, are blood.
  • dudsen (unregistered) in reply to .*

    politology polit = "politics" in ancient greek, and logy = "the study of" also in ancient greek.

    It's typical for the english speaking world to develop it's own terms and unit's just for the fun of it when the rest of the world have been using the same words for mileniums.

    Politology is an real word and it's commen to have the greek or latin word as walid word even if there is some popular english term, describing exactly the same thing.

    Just because an word is obscure doen't mean it's unvallid espcially if it's an old greek or latin term in use by an international group of schoolars.

    Liter does not become unvalid because gallon is an more pupular unit in the english speaking world.

  • Pooma (unregistered) in reply to TomCo



    Hopefully they have baseball bats.  Or maybe a cricket bat will do?
    [image]



    I gotta know, how, did you manage to get a picture of a cricket bat on plaid?  It's like a haggis wearing a bowler hat (except less tasty).
  • RJTech (unregistered) in reply to twks

    I agree, but when it compiles it can go live!

  • cakesy (unregistered) in reply to Gene Wirchenko
    Gene Wirchenko:
    GoatCheez:
    Gene Wirchenko:
    GoatCheez:
    That's the second time someone suggested a cricket bat. They don't sell those here (unless you look hard)! Cricket is basically non-existant in the US. Also, I REALLY doubt a cricket bat could hold up to this:

    http://www.aluminumbats.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1664


    Special sale price, too:

    Reg price                         149.97
    109.95 (crossed out)


    ROFLMAO! I can't believe I didn't notice that! I can't figure out the words to describe how WTF'd up me linking that on this is. ROFLMAO...

    Gotta love those -36.4% sales!


    As was pointed out upthread, it is actually 189.95 crossed out, but it looks as if it is 109.95 as the "0" and "8" are the same except for the line where a strikeout goes.  Characters that are too similar can be a WTF.  Another of these can be seen in proofreading text in Times New Roman: "bam" and "barn" look very similar.

    The explosives went off with a bam, and the barn collapsed.

    Sincerely,

    Gene Wirchenko

    Anybody who can't see that is an 8 is either blind or is still living in the ancient sumeria. joker!!

  • (cs) in reply to Anonymous Coward

    Anonymous:
    For those being quick to blame Ian, if management has set up a meeting with a client, you need to send SOMEBODY. If management and the client refuse to cancel / reschedule due to the delay, well, that's their WTF not yours. You go to the meeting and hope for the best, and it's better that _you_ go than some marketing drone who will report everything is going great and promise some more features.

    Going back to the OP it seems like you could be right, Ian was only appointed to do the demonstration, not responsible for the project or for controlling what the Elbonians were coming up with... But seriously, he must've been very anxious, not just expecting a 'simple compile with maybe a few error corrections'. In that situation you KNOW it will be a disaster, but you are probably someone that management believe are good to handle the customers and nasty surprises (or a suitable scapegoat).

  • (cs) in reply to cakesy
    Anonymous:

    Anybody who can't see that is an 8 is either blind or is still living in the ancient sumeria. joker!!



    Different computers, different operating systems, different browsers. There's a lot of possible reasons why the difference is obvious for some users and hard to spot for others without getting personal.

  • (cs) in reply to cakesy
    Anonymous:
    Gene Wirchenko:
    GoatCheez:
    Gene Wirchenko:
    GoatCheez:
    That's the second time someone suggested a cricket bat. They don't sell those here (unless you look hard)! Cricket is basically non-existant in the US. Also, I REALLY doubt a cricket bat could hold up to this:

    http://www.aluminumbats.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1664


    Special sale price, too:

    Reg price                         149.97
    109.95 (crossed out)


    ROFLMAO! I can't believe I didn't notice that! I can't figure out the words to describe how WTF'd up me linking that on this is. ROFLMAO...

    Gotta love those -36.4% sales!


    As was pointed out upthread, it is actually 189.95 crossed out, but it looks as if it is 109.95 as the "0" and "8" are the same except for the line where a strikeout goes.  Characters that are too similar can be a WTF.  Another of these can be seen in proofreading text in Times New Roman: "bam" and "barn" look very similar.

    The explosives went off with a bam, and the barn collapsed.

    Sincerely,

    Gene Wirchenko

    Anybody who can't see that is an 8 is either blind or is still living in the ancient sumeria. joker!!



    BAH! There are FOUR pixels that define it as an 8 as opposed to a 0. When running at 1800x1440, 4 pixels can be hard to notice ;-P

  • nds456 (unregistered)

    I think the fault lies in the actual company to rely on outsourcing to that extent, yes there are idiot programmers but are there even bigger/ idiotic consumers. don't you try a car out drive it around and then buy it, what were they thinking, and the paper developers who developed this don't care, they needed the money more than the company, anyways dont lay blame on everyone elese as North America loves to do, take responsibility and realize that it was your own fault. 

    as the infamous napolean dynamite would say

    geeez

  • Llelldorin (unregistered)

    The very best thing about this particular WTF is that it appears to involve two entirely separate pointy-haired bosses separated by thousands of miles. You can almost hear the conversations:

    UK:

    BPHB: You need to go demo some code for a client. IanMc: Great! Where's the code? I'll just test it a few times, and... BPHB: No time! You'll have to compile it in front of the client. IanMc: ?!? BPHB: Don't worry! We've had a crack team of Indian programmers working on it. They're all brilliant coders, and work for about 35p a day! IanMC: (Begins to print CVs to laser printer.)

    MEANWHILE, SOMEWHERE IN INDIA

    IPHB: Let me get this straight--you can write programs on paper? Indian Programmer: Yes, to begin with--that way you can check the algorithms before you start coding them... IPHB: So you don't actually need computers at all???? That's fantastic! Do you realize how much money that'll save?? Indian Programmer: But... never mind. (Begins to update CV using calligraphy, given that the IPHB has just sold their now-extraneous laser printer.)

    It's like an idiocy dipole pattern!

  • Fox M. (unregistered)

    I had to do this once myself as the developer. We were building the new company website for a telecommunications company. Problem was: they had Oracle, we didn't. Since I used database wrappers anyway, all I had to do was to ensure I only used very basic standard SQL (given I had no idea what Oracle was like) and keep my fingers crossed the application would not break when run on the production system. Fortunately, it worked like a charm, but that was the last time I accepted to work on a dev system that was not identically configured to the live system...

  • Niels (unregistered)

    Don't know what the bigger WTF is. Testing code 'on paper', or the total mismanagement in that project.

  • Mark H (unregistered) in reply to Volmarias
    Volmarias:
    Shouting opcodes across the room sounds like a terrible, terrible idea. No one had the forethought to write down the list and photocopy (or in those days, mimeograph) it and distribute it?


    I meant they were assembling the same code...of course they had opcodes written down, they were just making sure that one guy didn't pick the movl <register>, <literal> opcode when he was supposed to use the movl <register>,<index>,<offset> opcode, e.g.

    Still a bad idea, but given that there were no developers it was the only thing to do. In the year 2006 it would be totally absurd to use a process like that.
  • (cs) in reply to dudsen
    Anonymous:
    politology polit = "politics" in ancient greek, and logy = "the study of" also in ancient greek.

    It's typical for the english speaking world to develop it's own terms and unit's just for the fun of it when the rest of the world have been using the same words for mileniums.


    Of course the English-speaking world develops its own terms.  It is called a language.  If you are communicating in English, the rules used are the English rules.  If we were communicating in Russian, Russian's rules would be being used.  There were five errors in English in that last paragraph of yours.  How many of them are correct in other languages?

    Politology is an real word and it's commen to have the greek or latin word as walid word even if there is some popular english term, describing exactly the same thing.


    It does not appear to be so in English.

    Just because an word is obscure doen't mean it's unvallid espcially if it's an old greek or latin term in use by an international group of schoolars.


    That does not make it a valid English word though.

    Liter does not become unvalid because gallon is an more pupular unit in the english speaking world.


    You would be much more credible if your English did not have so many errors in it.

    Sincerely,

    Gene Wirchenko

  • Nemo (unregistered) in reply to jay
    jay:
    Volmarias:
    "OH YEAH? MOVL $MYCOCK, %YOURMOM"
    MOVL?  Let's not kid ourselves... MOVB is more applicable here  :p
    BEST GEEK JOKE EVER!
  • Derik (unregistered)

    This is a funny story.  I worked on a project that was given to my company for the same reason.  Our client has hired a consulting firm to convert a VB3 project to vb.net and after 1 year of developement they were handed the code.  Needless to say it did not compile, and when they asked the firm about the code, the firm admitted to outsourceing the project.  It was at this point that my company was hired to redo the redo and deliver it in less than 9 months.

    Gotta love the stories of outsourcing.

  • John Hensley (unregistered) in reply to Derik

    The real WTF is that IBM spent a lot of money in the 1970s trying to accomplish the same thing as these F-heads under the name "cleanroom software process." In many groups it was forbidden to have a compiler on your development system, and the star developers were the people who smuggled one in anyway.

  • wrb (unregistered) in reply to Unklegwar

    Ah. I see you worked for Microsoft ;-)

  • oas (unregistered) in reply to mrsticks1982

    -------------

    Ahem, Oracle - isn´t it?

    -------------

    wbr oas
    --------
    better is enemy of good, good enough both´s
    -----------

  • Steve M. (unregistered) in reply to Wayne

    I completely agree with the parent poster.  The primary blame is on Ian Mc.  It was his job to steer the project - had he been doing his job, he would never have been surprised like that.

  • (cs) in reply to Steve M.
    Anonymous:
    I completely agree with the parent poster.  The primary blame is on Ian Mc.  It was his job to steer the project - had he been doing his job, he would never have been surprised like that.


    Oh, why?  Where was it stated anywhere in the thread that Ian was in charge of the project?  He may just simply have had the demo dumped in his lap.

    Sincerely,

    Gene Wirchenko

  • (cs) in reply to Gene Wirchenko
    Gene Wirchenko:
    Anonymous:
    I completely agree with the parent poster.  The primary blame is on Ian Mc.  It was his job to steer the project - had he been doing his job, he would never have been surprised like that.


    Oh, why?  Where was it stated anywhere in the thread that Ian was in charge of the project?  He may just simply have had the demo dumped in his lap.

    Sincerely,

    Gene Wirchenko



    Your correct it was never stated that I was in charge, and you are correct in saying that I was just lumbered with the "demo" without any real say in it. Its a shame I never got my hands on the code provided as I'm sure I could have made a good go of it having recently programmed in Pro*COBOL and Oracle only a few years previous to this "episode".

  • Walker Boh (unregistered) in reply to Unklegwar

    Man...I thought that was OUR testing philosophy.

    Development Test: "Well, it compiled, didn't it?"

    UAT: "I saw all the fields, and all the GIFs showed up- no red X's. Done!"

    Now I'm worried about IP rights infringement. You won't tell, will ya?

  • (cs) in reply to JBL

    JBL:
    Alex Papadimoulis:
    An early adopter of outsourcing, Ian's company...


    Lesson 17: Don't be one.

     

    I thought an "Early Adopter" was someone who rushed out and bought stuff before it was ready...

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