• Steve The Cynic (unregistered)

    He needs to be careful, or this will drive him dotty...

  • (cs)

    And to think, just yesterday someone was lauding the virtues of VB.

  • (cs)

    Ah yes, Microsoft Office macros; yet more proof that VB should never have been invented, and that its inventors deserve endless torment for their crimes.

  • Z (unregistered)

    W.T.F.

  • Ex-Wow (unregistered)

    More dots!! more dots!!

    Sorry, couldn't resist :)

  • Ernie (unregistered)

    This is flippin fantastic. Love it.

  • RBoy (unregistered) in reply to frits
    frits:
    And to think, just yesterday someone was lauding the virtues of VB.

    Because you couldn't do the same stupid thing in any other language?

  • (cs)

    And, as they say,

    Dots all, Folks!

  • bl@h (unregistered)

    Please contact a Comment Administrator to fix this Com.......

  • (cs) in reply to frits
    frits:
    And to think, just yesterday someone was lauding the virtues of VB.
    Don't confuse VBA Scripting with VB. They are different. One is awful, the other is horrid.
  • Raiding (unregistered) in reply to Ex-Wow
    Ex-Wow:
    More dots!! more dots!!

    Sorry, couldn't resist :)

    Fifty DKP minus!

  • Nibh (unregistered) in reply to Steve The Cynic

    This illustrates something that all but the worst programmers already know:

    If you hear the word "Office", "Excel", "Word", or "Access" during the course of a job interview, it is necessary for your own wellbeing to throw common courtesy out the window, followed by the rest of your body. It is essential that you escape at the first sign of danger.

  • Captain (unregistered)

    THERE! ARE! FOUR! DOTS!

  • Peter (unregistered)
    Original Article:
    "This counts as toxic waste, right?" Jason muttered. "Shouldn't I get a superpower out of this?"
    Beautiful! Thank you so much for that comment.
  • (cs) in reply to RBoy
    RBoy:
    frits:
    And to think, just yesterday someone was lauding the virtues of VB.

    Because you couldn't do the same stupid thing in any other language?

    Write macros in Office? Not yet.

  • (cs)

    He has a superpower.. he's now "VBA Guy". Hey, he never said it had to be a GOOD superpower.

    Didn't the "great" Joel Spolsky invent VBA? Or come up with the idea behind it, anyway? I seem to recall that.

    Also, being a WoW player I lol'd at the "more dots" and "-50 dkp" comments. Although I would argue that that code counts as an application of Corruption

  • Spivonious (unregistered) in reply to Captain
    Captain:
    THERE! ARE! FOUR! DOTS!

    There are five dots.

  • Josephus (unregistered)

    .. . .. . . .

  • lol (unregistered) in reply to Nibh
    Nibh:
    This illustrates something that all but the worst programmers already know:

    If you hear the word "Office", "Excel", "Word", or "Access" during the course of a job interview, it is necessary for your own wellbeing to throw common courtesy out the window, followed by the rest of your body. It is essential that you escape at the first sign of danger.

    "We received word from your former employer that you are an excel-lent programmer. You future here has an amazing outlook. You will receive a corner office with access to all kinds of pornography. Let me show a sample of the powerpoint, by which I mean ball gag."

    If it wasn't for the raunchy all men gay porn, that would sound nice!

  • ∃ Style. (unregistered)

    pre ol li { line-height:160%; margin-bottom:2px; background-color:rgb(249, 249, 249); } .code { font-family: monospace; margin-left: 10px; padding-bottom: 2px; border-top: 1px solid #9A9A9A; border-bottom: 1px solid #9A9A9A; word-wrap: break-word; } span.keyword{ color: rgb(0,0,255); } span.datatype{ color: rgb(56,40,146); } span.comment{ color: rgb(10,180,10); } span.string{ color: rgb(204,0,204); } span.builtins{ color: rgb(119,119,119); } span.objects{ color: rgb(16,195,255); } The phone rang. ...

    Mocking other developers while producing WTFs daily - priceless!

  • Wolfraider (unregistered)

    It's the dots man, the dots

  • ewdots (unregistered)

    those dots should've spellt "SOS" in morse

  • sd (unregistered) in reply to ewdots
    ewdots:
    those dots should've spellt "SOS" in morse

    You need dashes for that too.

  • (cs)

    Ahhh, what an awful dream. Dots everywhere... and I thought I saw a dash.

  • (cs) in reply to The_Assimilator
    The_Assimilator:
    Ah yes, Microsoft Office macros; yet more proof that VB should never have been invented, and that its inventors deserve endless torment for their crimes.

    I'm with you on this one. One of the circles of hell described by Dante contained flatterers submerged in a river of shit. I say those who spawned VB belong there.

  • pete (unregistered) in reply to lol
    lol:
    Nibh:
    This illustrates something that all but the worst programmers already know:

    If you hear the word "Office", "Excel", "Word", or "Access" during the course of a job interview, it is necessary for your own wellbeing to throw common courtesy out the window, followed by the rest of your body. It is essential that you escape at the first sign of danger.

    "We received word from your former employer that you are an excel-lent programmer. You future here has an amazing outlook. You will receive a corner office with access to all kinds of pornography. Let me show a sample of the powerpoint, by which I mean ball gag."

    If it wasn't for the raunchy all men gay porn, that would sound nice!

    You will get into the groove working here inter-connecting with our publishers on many projects.

    I don't know how to fit in visio, inf path and one note in.

  • NorgTheFat (unregistered)

    Heh, this gets really bad when each dot is a complex formula that references other dots...

    Remember to cut along the dotted line!

  • (cs)

    Microfiche didn't die. It just mutated.

  • revenant (unregistered)

    where's pacman when you need him?

  • (cs)
    If strTempString = "0" Or strTempString = "1" Or strTempString = "2" Or strTempString = "3" Or strTempString = "4" Or strTempString = "5" Or strTempString = "6" Or strTempString = "7" Or strTempString = "8" Or strTempString = "9" Or UCase(strTempString) = "A" Or UCase(strTempString) = "B" Or UCase(strTempString) = "C" Or UCase(strTempString) = "D" Or UCase(strTempString) = "E" Or UCase(strTempString) = "F" Or UCase(strTempString) = "G" Or UCase(strTempString) = "H" Or UCase(strTempString) = "I" Or UCase(strTempString) = "J" Or UCase(strTempString) = "K" Or UCase(strTempString) = "L" Or UCase(strTempString) = "M" Or UCase(strTempString) = "N" Or UCase(strTempString) = "O" Or UCase(strTempString) = "P" Or UCase(strTempString) = "Q" Or UCase(strTempString) = "R" Or UCase(strTempString) = "S" Or UCase(strTempString) = "T" Or UCase(strTempString) = "U" Or UCase(strTempString) = "V" Or UCase(strTempString) = "W" Or UCase(strTempString) = "X" Or UCase(strTempString) = "Y" Or UCase(strTempString) = "Z" Then
    FTFY:
    if( isalnum(strTempString[0]) )
    (I write C not VB, sue me.)
  • toasty (unregistered)
    InternationalRefTemplate [...] lnternationRefTemplate [...] InternatinoalRefTemplate [...] IntertanionalRefTemplate

    The rest is bad enough but this stuff is just pure evil.

    What's wrong with InternationalRefTemplate2 or InternationalRefTemplateTempChangeTicket74889?

    Why try to make it look like the original?

    I used to work at a place that had a system which, for various reasons, couldn't wait if the overnight validation was not complete so simply copied the Validation table into a table called Vaalidation and continued from there. Guess how many times I missed this at 4am when roused from my sleep to deal with the issues caused by the many shortcomings of this web of horrors.

    Boy, am I glad I left that place because nothing like that ever happens at the place where I work now.

  • STarLite (unregistered) in reply to sd
    sd:
    ewdots:
    those dots should've spellt "SOS" in morse

    You need dashes for that too.

    Or really long dots ;)

  • Voraciously Bothersome for Amateurs (unregistered)

    I like the writing style of this one, but it just isn't the VBA platform that's at fault. I know some guys who will knock you out a C#/COM version of the same thing that will foul up ten times as powerfully, for a fraction of the cost of those "macro administrators". And it's suitable for scaling up to a whole enterprise!

    TRWTF is people who write that sort of code, and they're capable of doing it anywhere. You don't need to be a super-intelligent, ultra-educated elite developer to write a code comment - read the helpfile for a better way of doing things - or check your work against elementary logic. An ordinary human being really ought to be able to do it.

  • (cs)

    Those dots were actually the system trying to signal for help in Morse Code.

  • csm (unregistered)

    I'm pretty sure all the mentions of gay porn is what's causing the comments from being pulled up here on myh work computer.

    thanks a LOT guys ;)

  • (cs) in reply to ewdots
    ewdots:
    those dots should've spellt "SOS" in morse

    I think it was more like, "i e i e e e"

  • anon (unregistered)

    My brain vapor-locked after reading the punch line. Let's hope that particular primate doesn't teach this trick to any offspring.

  • A (unregistered)

    Clearly the proper enterprisey solution would have been to make the "dots" use white font color so the user couldn't see them. That's just common sense good UI design.

  • SR (unregistered) in reply to bl@h
    bl@h:
    Please contact a Comment Administrator to fix this Com.......

    But you are a Comment Administrator

  • Scotty (unregistered)

    Pfft, VBA's great. I'm saying that as a dev that's had to rescue/convert and on occasion begrudgingly create a few of them. And I have seen my fair share of wtfs. I take them for granted in VBA. What get's me is seeing this stuff echoed in "Architected" systems using big iron tech. As painful as it is - its a fact of life - there's a gap between business and devs that won't be bridged for a long time and for now this is all we've got.

    The tricky thing with VBA is inevitably it becomes epic and uncontrolled. If you can curb that then it does serve as a handy gap filler.

    It's been said here before it's not the tools, it's the Tools using it.

  • (cs) in reply to Voraciously Bothersome for Amateurs
    Voraciously Bothersome for Amateurs:
    TRWTF is people who write that sort of code, and they're capable of doing it anywhere. You don't need to be a super-intelligent, ultra-educated elite developer to write a code comment - read the helpfile for a better way of doing things - or check your work against elementary logic. An ordinary human being really ought to be able to do it.

    Like I said in the article, the real WTF is that Office comes with a full development environment and is installed on every user's desktop, pretty much everywhere. Ridiculous code just follows from there.

    It's like car accidents. The most amazing element of car accidents is that there aren't more of them. You give these mouth-breathers a thousand pounds of steel and a few gallons of a very explosive fuel and send them out on the roads with vague instructions- and somehow, we actually survive this.

  • Anonymously Yours (unregistered) in reply to Lorne Kates

    I'm a little confused about how, "Stop deleting the dots!" resolved the issue. Did they restore the dots from backup? Did they just throw out the code that referenced the dots and hoped nobody would notice?

    Lorne Kates:
    Ahhh, what an awful dream. Dots everywhere... and I thought I saw a dash.
    Don't be silly, Bender. There's no such thing as 2.
  • Kevin (unregistered)

    Nothing wrong with VB (or VBA), it is perfectly possible to write good code in it. Unfortunately, it is also possible to write horrendous code in it too, just as with any other language.

    The difference between VB and other languages though is it is available to anyone with Microsoft Office, who then record a few macros, edit those macros, and suddenly believe themselves programmers.

  • timias (unregistered)

    "This counts as toxic waste, right?" Jason muttered. "Shouldn't I get a superpower out of this?"

    Best comment ever!!!

  • (cs) in reply to Josephus
    Josephus:
    .. . .. . . .
    Don't you know language like that will get you banned? You've been warned: .. . . . .. ..... .
  • ed (unregistered)

    I would like to purchase a copy of this DocGen application on behalf of my company. It seems much more enterprisey than our current Excel macros.

    Does it work in Office 2007, or shall we upgrade to 03?

  • ceiswyn (unregistered) in reply to A
    A:
    Clearly the proper enterprisey solution would have been to make the "dots" use white font color so the user couldn't see them. That's just common sense good UI design.

    I actually did that once.

    Must have been almost ten years back. Whichever version of Word we were using at the time had a bug whereby sometimes it wouldn't let you delete things from the footer. Three of us spent a day wrestling with the problem before deciding to heck with it; even though we couldn't delete anything we could still change the formatting, so every time we came across the problem we just changed the offending text to 1pt, white.

    Some of those docs probably still have invisible random numbers in them to this day...

  • (cs) in reply to Smitty

    I think is the first WTF that made me literally facepalm.

    Smitty:
    The_Assimilator:
    Ah yes, Microsoft Office macros; yet more proof that VB should never have been invented, and that its inventors deserve endless torment for their crimes.
    I'm with you on this one. One of the circles of hell described by Dante contained flatterers submerged in a river of shit. I say those who spawned VB belong there.
    ...but headfirst.
  • Hired Gun (unregistered) in reply to Captain

    You, sir, now owe me:

    1 chocolate chip cookie 1 glass of milk 1 monitor wipe.

  • (cs)

    [size=1]You mean, like that? 666 42 69[/size]

    This is one of the most epic WTF on this site. It may lack the memetic power of the "brillant" Paula Bean or Web 0.1 (wooden table), but it's a classic right up there with the Customer Friendly System, the Wang VS 1984 bug, the FOR-CASE paradigm, etc.

    To add my 2 cents, I don't think VBA itself is responsible (and this is from a Mac user): some automation/macro is indispensable in an office suite, and it could have happened whatever the language. I don't think it's the people who started this codebase either; no, in my opinion the problem is an organization that lets such organically grown software become mission critical before it's taken over by actual IT programmers.

    Addendum (2010-04-29 11:00): Crap, [size] didn't work, and over the 5 minute limit now.

Leave a comment on “Poke a Dot”

Log In or post as a guest

Replying to comment #:

Log Out

« Return to Article