• Quack (unregistered)

    Some comment relating to being first or a witty joke regarding csv or psv and being first belongs here.

  • Anonymous (unregistered)

    aaaaahhhhh ... my brain hurts!!!

  • (cs)

    Tony should really lay off that pipe.

  • (cs)

    Clearly Tony's OS is broken. After all if I change an image file from .jpg to .png on my computer it still works.

  • Praer (unregistered)

    At long last, I believe we have found Paula's mentor...

  • Scotty (unregistered)

    Yep just another example of Microsoft not fully implementing features. shame. ;)

  • A-Nony-Mouse (unregistered)

    Ahhh..for the good old days when physical contact was an acceptable form of communication...

  • Iv (unregistered)

    Just|fire|Tony|!

  • Knux2 (unregistered)

    FRIST_TWO

    Captcha: ideo - a male idea

  • Anonymous (unregistered)

    Companies who retain blatantly incompentent staff, even when their incompetence is known to everyone in said company - classic WTF right there. But kudos to Tony for defining a constant that SHITS UNICORNS! I wonder how the declaration for that looks...

    public const unishit string MyString = string.Empty; // Shits 'corns
  • John (unregistered)
    There was a vast field between "incompetent" and "incompetent enough to get fired", and Tony frolicked in that field among the Lilies of Wasted Effort and the Butterflies of Uselessness. He was the sort of person that could only survive in a large company where his dead-weight was barely noticable among the bueraucratic morass. Amit's statement was literally true: Tony, a senior developer, should have been able to make these changes. Could he, on the other hand?

    Some of the best writing I've seen. I have the same guy in my group

  • Anon (unregistered)

    This is a video comment, please save with extension ".vhs", print out, and stuff into your tapedeck to see my rant on working with programmers who think that computers are magical boxes that just magically do what you want them to, instead of following instructions.

  • smit (unregistered)

    TRWTF. Amit writing a CSV parser.

    I wonder how many times they are going to have to "enhance" this code to support text identified by quotes, embedded double-quote characters, fields with embedded line breaks, record separator used as the decimal separator, UTF-8 Encoding, etc.

    CSV application support

    Don't reinvent the wheel Amit.

  • ForcedSterilizationsForAll (unregistered)

    Tony sounds like a Microsoft MVP.

  • (cs) in reply to smit

    When I was turning Amit's submission into an article, I had the same thought.

  • kikito (unregistered)

    I had one like that on one project. We called him "Scoobie-doo".

    Then I got fired. He wasn't; his parent was some big fish with lots of connections. Last thing I heard from him was that he was being tossed from project to project but no one could write bad reviews about him.

  • WildcatMike (unregistered) in reply to John

    I work with one of these guys too. Instead of firing him the company is "developing" him.

    We call him our canary. We figure that as long as he still works here, the rest of our jobs are all safe.

  • Richard Hertz (unregistered)

    I wanted to say that I been to this site for some time but took a break since I lost the bookmark and forgot all about it until recently my old rss reader seemed to repopulated the links. Anyway, I digress, just wanted to say seeing Paula's name again made me chuckle as it is so true!

    Man that brought back good memories of craptastic code.

    Thanks for sharing guys!

  • (cs) in reply to kikito

    Where I work, there's a special team in IT. People too incompetent to do real IT work get put on this team, where they don't have any real responsibility and are doing what I perceive as the simplest tasks possible.

    And they still don't do it terribly well.

  • Prove it, Tony (unregistered)

    I LOL'd. Keep up the good work, Remy.

  • (cs) in reply to Iv
    Iv:
    Just|fire|Tony|!
    From|a|cannon|,|into|a|volcano|!
  • Bryan The K (unregistered)

    The real wtf is that he has a Zune, amirite?

    In all seriousness this stuff sickens me, knowing that some clown out there is a senior developer making more money than me yet they can't handle the most trivial of tasks.

    I've never claimed to be a great developer, let alone good; however, I am, as I've said, merely competent. But in an age of incompetence, that makes me extraordinary.

    Oh well, off to see if I can get this .txt file to read to me if I change it to a .wma file.

  • (cs)

    What a wonderful idea! Finally I now see an easy way to migrate all those old VB ASP websites to ASP.NET - just rename them to .ASPX!

  • (cs) in reply to WildcatMike
    WildcatMike:
    I work with one of these guys too. Instead of firing him the company is "developing" him.

    We call him our canary. We figure that as long as he still works here, the rest of our jobs are all safe.

    Very nice!!! You and your team mates had a wonderful idea. Yes sir!

  • WTF (unregistered)

    Last reply on MP3, Zune and DRM is really out of place. First, come on, he really couldn't be that stupid to believe that a CSV file can be played as MP3, and then, he is TOO stupid to know about DRM.

    CAPTCHA: 'facilisis'. Everybody has it.

  • sac (unregistered)

    Really, how did that guy survive the interviews?! Were there none or what?

    Captcha: usitas - what Tony is not of

  • Valrandir (unregistered)

    I doubt this is true, but based on my experience it might be true.

  • re:me (unregistered) in reply to ubersoldat
    ubersoldat:
    WildcatMike:
    I work with one of these guys too. Instead of firing him the company is "developing" him.

    We call him our canary. We figure that as long as he still works here, the rest of our jobs are all safe.

    Very nice!!! You and your team mates had a wonderful idea. Yes sir!

    I agree! And, if you don't know who the canary is...

  • Cliff notes anyone (unregistered)

    Ouch.

    I thought incompetence was not being able to think for yourself in order to come up with logical plans and solutions. I've seen that kind of incompetence but wow. Just wow.

  • Bryan The K (unregistered) in reply to sac
    sac:
    Really, how did that guy survive the interviews?! Were there none or what?

    Captcha: usitas - what Tony is not of

    After enough time in the field they don't ask you technical questions on the interviews. You can bs your way through by talking about "projects" you were a part of.

    Just read a few blogs and play buzz-word bingo and voila you have a job.

  • bl@h (unregistered)

    I call bs, no one is that dumb.

  • kjordan (unregistered) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    This is a video comment, please save with extension ".vhs", print out, and stuff into your tapedeck to see my rant on working with programmers who think that computers are magical boxes that just magically do what you want them to, instead of following instructions.

    I saved it to .vhs like you said, but I only have a Betamax, so I renamed that to .beta and it doesn't work. It also seems to have messed up the heads on it. Will it work if I change it to .dvd?

  • SR (unregistered) in reply to kjordan
    kjordan:
    Anon:
    This is a video comment, please save with extension ".vhs", print out, and stuff into your tapedeck to see my rant on working with programmers who think that computers are magical boxes that just magically do what you want them to, instead of following instructions.

    I saved it to .vhs like you said, but I only have a Betamax, so I renamed that to .beta and it doesn't work. It also seems to have messed up the heads on it. Will it work if I change it to .dvd?

    The .beta has quite a few bugs that they hope to work out before the release candidate.

  • Cliff notes anyone (unregistered) in reply to Remy Porter
    Remy Porter:
    Where I work, there's a special team in IT. People too incompetent to do real IT work get put on this team, where they don't have any real responsibility and are doing what I perceive as the simplest tasks possible.

    And they still don't do it terribly well.

    I'll bite. What kind of work are they assigned?

  • Woody (unregistered) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    This is a video comment, please save with extension ".vhs", print out, put on a wooden table, take a picture, print it and stuff into your tapedeck to see my rant on working with programmers who think that computers are magical boxes that just magically do what you want them to, instead of following instructions.

    FIFY

  • (cs) in reply to kjordan
    kjordan:
    Anon:
    This is a video comment, please save with extension ".vhs", print out, and stuff into your tapedeck to see my rant on working with programmers who think that computers are magical boxes that just magically do what you want them to, instead of following instructions.

    I saved it to .vhs like you said, but I only have a Betamax, so I renamed that to .beta and it doesn't work. It also seems to have messed up the heads on it. Will it work if I change it to .dvd?

    By accident I changed it to .grilledcheese and my two-year-old promptly ruined my VCR.

  • Cliff notes anyone (unregistered) in reply to SR
    SR:
    kjordan:
    Anon:
    This is a video comment, please save with extension ".vhs", print out, and stuff into your tapedeck to see my rant on working with programmers who think that computers are magical boxes that just magically do what you want them to, instead of following instructions.

    I saved it to .vhs like you said, but I only have a Betamax, so I renamed that to .beta and it doesn't work. It also seems to have messed up the heads on it. Will it work if I change it to .dvd?

    The .beta has quite a few bugs that they hope to work out before the release candidate.

    You're doing it wrong! Wonce you have the icon on your desktop, cross your eyes and smash your head on your desk. If you don't see the video, try again. But this time smash harder. Consider holding a sharpened pencial (#2 of course) on your desk and smashing head on that. Eventually the video will start playing.

  • NorgTheFat (unregistered)

    Ah, the "non-programming programmer" (as seen on coding horror). I have heard of these mythical creatures, but not yet seen one with my own eyes.

    It's really bad when they don't even understand the basics of how an OS, or even a FileSystem works.

    "If I change the file extension from MP3 to mpg, I should get a music video right?"

    That, and using smileys in a work email? Really?

  • monkeyPushButton (unregistered)

    Can we just use a lead pipe to separate Tony's head from his shoulders? Might be messy but it would feel so good.

    Oh, wait. That might not make a noticeable difference.

  • vovo (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    Companies who retain blatantly incompentent staff, even when their incompetence is known to everyone in said company - classic WTF right there. But kudos to Tony for defining a constant that SHITS UNICORNS! I wonder how the declaration for that looks... 
    public const unishit string MyString = string.Empty; // Shits 'corns

    I want to marry you and each day please find a reason to say "shits 'corns".

  • sac (unregistered) in reply to Bryan The K
    Bryan The K:
    After enough time in the field they don't ask you technical questions on the interviews. You can bs your way through by talking about "projects" you were a part of.

    Granted, but it seems Tony is one of the guys who just stay and don't change jobs too often.

    http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Up-or-Out-Solving-the-IT-Turnover-Crisis.aspx

    Captcha: illum - the light side of life

  • (cs) in reply to smit
    smit:
    TRWTF. Amit writing a CSV parser.

    (...SNIP...)

    Don't reinvent the wheel Amit.

    Sure. Except that:

    1. There's no globally accepted CSV standard, meaning there's a reasonable chance the data Amit is dealing with is some non-standard, ad-hoc flavour that would require a custom parser. Quite likely, given that Amit was writing a CSV parser from scratch, and
    2. Amit was correct in writing it from scratch, at least in hindsight, since the requirement immediately changed to not deal solely with commas.
  • what's in a name (unregistered)

    of course! renaming "New Text Document.txt" to "A-Team.R5.somegroup.ac3.avi" works for me!

  • Neil (unregistered) in reply to smit
    smit:
    I wonder how many times they are going to have to "enhance" this code to support text identified by quotes, embedded double-quote characters, fields with embedded line breaks, record separator used as the decimal separator, UTF-8 Encoding, etc.
    The reason Amit needs to write a CSV parser is that SQL Server no longer provides a reasonable CSV parser, in particular one handling embedded quotes. Fortunately the one time I needed to import some CSV it turned out that there was exactly one ASCII printing character that was not used anywhere within the data set.
  • boog (unregistered) in reply to Bryan The K
    Bryan The K:
    The real wtf is that he has a Zune, amirite?

    Read the article again.

    Zen != Zune

  • Sam (unregistered) in reply to WTF
    WTF:
    Last reply on MP3, Zune and DRM is really out of place. First, come on, he really couldn't be that stupid to believe that a CSV file can be played as MP3, and then, he is TOO stupid to know about DRM.
    Bryan The K:
    The real wtf is that he has a Zune, amirite?

    The real WTF is that you guys can't read. Tony owns a Zen, not a Zune.

  • Bernie (unregistered)

    We are TRWTF. We, the computer geeks of world, have royally screwed computer users by allowing the situation (i.e., changeable file name extensions that don't change the file itself) to exist.

    But can we really blame ourselves? All of us? As it is hard for an ant to stop a tidal wave, it is hard for one of us to stop Microsoft (and other companies).

    YABut, many - maybe most - of us have our jobs because Microsoft makes software that requires support from people like us. If MS would just make good software, we would be out of jobs and MS's torrent of money would turn into a trickle. (Have you forgot that MS is a business and businesses are in business to make money before all other concerns?)

    So, who am I blaming? Still us. I cannot blame the guy stilling next to me. He is a normal human being, unlike us. Have you ever met a normal (or are you surrounded by people with your skills)? Normals are scary. They send the same document to the same printer 5 times then call you. You delete all but 1 copy of the document in the print queue then turn the printer on. Or they call you every time their email gets mis-sorted. You click the column header to correctly sort their email. And they never eff'n grasp that simple concept that is used so often in UIs.

    (Please excuse my WTF moment. I find it difficult to accept that most humans are that stupid. However, it was the newly hired "IT Supervisor" that called me to help with the printer problem mentioned above.)

    Am I rambling? Perhaps I need a cookie. (Hello? I just set you up to make a really good computer joke as my expense.)

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to Cliff notes anyone
    Cliff notes anyone:
    SR:
    kjordan:
    Anon:
    This is a video comment, please save with extension ".vhs", print out, and stuff into your tapedeck to see my rant on working with programmers who think that computers are magical boxes that just magically do what you want them to, instead of following instructions.

    I saved it to .vhs like you said, but I only have a Betamax, so I renamed that to .beta and it doesn't work. It also seems to have messed up the heads on it. Will it work if I change it to .dvd?

    The .beta has quite a few bugs that they hope to work out before the release candidate.

    You're doing it wrong! Wonce you have the icon on your desktop, cross your eyes and smash your head on your desk. If you don't see the video, try again. But this time smash harder. Consider holding a sharpened pencial (#2 of course) on your desk and smashing head on that. Eventually the video will start playing.

    I didn't have a #2 pencil, juct a bic ballpoint. So I scratched out the "BIC" and wrote in "#2". Why is it not working?

  • CSK (unregistered) in reply to Markp
    Markp:
    smit:
    TRWTF. Amit writing a CSV parser.

    (...SNIP...)

    Don't reinvent the wheel Amit.

    Sure. Except that:

    1. There's no globally accepted CSV standard, meaning there's a reasonable chance the data Amit is dealing with is some non-standard, ad-hoc flavour that would require a custom parser. Quite likely, given that Amit was writing a CSV parser from scratch, and

    2. Amit was correct in writing it from scratch, at least in hindsight, since the requirement immediately changed to not deal solely with commas.

    • Sometimes the verb 'parse' is extended to include doing something vaguely useful with the data you extract out. For example, you may need to digest the data enough to insert each row into multiple tables of a reasonably normalized database while sanity checking values and discarding duplicates. With a bit of testing time factored in, writing this could be time consuming enough to require a coffee refill.

  • Herby (unregistered)

    Where to begin?

    Yes, Paula Bean now has a mentoring job.

    When I was doing work for answering services, we used to call these people "Dumber than cheese".

    Sometimes we wondered if they has passed the "mirror test".

    Oh, and finally, to make a music video all one needs to do is change the extension from '.mp3' to '.mtv'. Perfectly obvious!

Leave a comment on “Pipe Up”

Log In or post as a guest

Replying to comment #:

Log Out

« Return to Article