The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

C-Octothorpe · 2012-05-23 Reply Admin

iwoas:
It may be a batch file called select.bat preceded by prompt mysql$g.

Right, and when the police question me, I'll tell them you "tripped" in front of the bus. It's possible, right?

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

Steven:
Duh. Everybody knows OCTOBER and NOVEMBER should be capitalized... (zeroth?)

Thirty days hath Octember April, June, and no wonder...

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

David:
Data validation, DO YOU SPEAK IT?!

Do you read the SQL standard?

There's this passage ... Ezekiel 25:17 ...

The path of the righteous DBA is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil programmers.

Blessed is he who, in the name of security and best practices, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his data's keeper and the finder of lost queries.

And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to exploit and destroy my data!

And you will know my name is the DBA when I lay my vengeance upon thee!

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

They must have a customer in Turkmenistan:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaming_of_Turkmen_months_and_days_of_week,_2002

Silfax · 2012-05-23 Reply Admin

Zemm:
TGV:
Judging by the fact that both NULL and the empty string occur, I infer it's not Oracle. At least something is sane.

Judging by the mysql> prompt I'd say it's not Oracle also.

I thought that mysql was Oracle these days.

Either way the table is missing Octobuary.

D-Coder · 2012-05-23 Reply Admin

Somehow they spelled "February" correctly. +1!

So their score is now -283.

cellocgw · 2012-05-23 Reply Admin

XXXXX:
Peyote `Simon` Joints:
Actually, I was born on the 11st of NULL, 2147483647 BC. This table looks fine.
It's just this kind of carelessness that shows why we should have a table of milliseconds->readable date strings. ------------------------------------------------------------- 00000000000000000000000000000000 | 1970-JAN-01 00:00:00.00000 00000000000000000000000000000001 | 1970-JAN-01 00:00:00.00001 00000000000000000000000000000002 | 1970-JAN-01 00:00:00.00002 etc. etc. etc. ------------------------------------------------------------

Hey, I use the 1904 date system, you insensitive clod!

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

Silfax:
Zemm:
TGV:
Judging by the fact that both NULL and the empty string occur, I infer it's not Oracle. At least something is sane.

Judging by the mysql> prompt I'd say it's not Oracle also.

I thought that mysql was Oracle these days.

Either way the table is missing Octobuary.

COrect: Java & MySQL are being owned by Oracle. I ain't think it's a good idea of DB company to be ownership of temporary free DB.

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

Movember is missing too.

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

Floopuary is missing too!

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2003-01-08/

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

Like so many that are presented as WTFs, there's not enough background to know whether it's a really bad solution to a good problem or a really good solution to a bad problem.

How about if there was a table which held everything that the users had entered for "Month"?

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

GWO:
The real WTF is saying "none are", and not "none is". None takes singular verb forms.
Captcha: luptatum - The greatest werewolf jazz pianist of all time.

I say "none are", since none literally means not one. Also, I think "none is" sounds too much like "one is". I guess this is the same reason "an apple" exists to break up the phonemes.

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

GWO:
The real WTF is saying "none are", and not "none is". None takes singular verb forms.
Captcha: luptatum - The greatest werewolf jazz pianist of all time.

Except the greatest jazz pianist of all time was Keith Jarrett, and he was born in Null (or was that NO?)

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

Can we see some more from this project ?

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

myName:
Like so many that are presented as WTFs, there's not enough background to know whether it's a really bad solution to a good problem or a really good solution to a bad problem.
How about if there was a table which held everything that the users had entered for "Month"?

I too would love to get more context, but just for additional laughs. There's no way in hell that this is not a huge wtf. And why would you let users enter just anything for a month field? Are you holding a contest?

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

Gyxi:
That could make sense in some cases I guess if you want to use it for joining and do not want a 'magic number' in your database. Is Month=1 January or February. A 'Month'-table could tell you.

Not when the table consists of a single column.

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

Ken B.:
Gyxi:
That could make sense in some cases I guess if you want to use it for joining and do not want a 'magic number' in your database. Is Month=1 January or February. A 'Month'-table could tell you.
Not when the table consists of a single column.

There is no need to store a redundant number. The numbering is implied by the sequence of the entries as stored in the table.

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

The SQL Server database table of "States" that would have our normal 50, but had a few interesting ones like "Jamaica" and even "North Korea", but it wasn't a complete list of countries too (like 70 entries altogether)...very odd....

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

Codd:
Ken B.:
Gyxi:
That could make sense in some cases I guess if you want to use it for joining and do not want a 'magic number' in your database. Is Month=1 January or February. A 'Month'-table could tell you.
Not when the table consists of a single column.
There is no need to store a redundant number. The numbering is implied by the sequence of the entries as stored in the table.

Unfortunately, when the next French revolution comes along, and you need to delete the now-banned month "L", your numbering scheme goes out the window. Though, I suppose, you could keep the row, and change it to "MONTH_NOT_FOUND".

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

Codd:
Ken B.:
Gyxi:
That could make sense in some cases I guess if you want to use it for joining and do not want a 'magic number' in your database. Is Month=1 January or February. A 'Month'-table could tell you.
Not when the table consists of a single column.
There is no need to store a redundant number. The numbering is implied by the sequence of the entries as stored in the table.

Errr no thanks. I'll stick to having my 'redundant' id column thank you very much.

Matt Westwood · 2012-05-23 Reply Admin

You got OCTOBER and December, we need Hexuary and BINGUST as well to cater for a few other number types.

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

I see the problem. it's missing Intercalaris. http://www.ortelius.de/kalender/rom_en.php

I hate Akismet.

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

Monsoon month is missing for Indian compatibility

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

Zemm:
TGV:
Judging by the fact that both NULL and the empty string occur, I infer it's not Oracle. At least something is sane.

Judging by the mysql> prompt I'd say it's not Oracle also.

you do know that MySQL is a 100% Oracle subsidiary?

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

David:
Data validation, DO YOU SPEAK IT?!

Data validation ain't no country I ever heard of.

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

Codd:
Ken B.:
Gyxi:
That could make sense in some cases I guess if you want to use it for joining and do not want a 'magic number' in your database. Is Month=1 January or February. A 'Month'-table could tell you.
Not when the table consists of a single column.
There is no need to store a redundant number. The numbering is implied by the sequence of the entries as stored in the table.

I know you're just trolling, but you can't guarantee the ordering of results without an ORDER BY.

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

North Bus:
RuBen:
Well i can finally say I'm born T-32-198L
My goodness, what a coincidence. I just tried using a T-32-198L in a project, last week. It exploded, however.

I'm glad to hear of your success. Keep it up.

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

dark Yuris:
if month is purely informational and business logic does not depend on it - this is acceptable

WTF!?!?

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

dogmatic:
myName:
Like so many that are presented as WTFs, there's not enough background to know whether it's a really bad solution to a good problem or a really good solution to a bad problem.
How about if there was a table which held everything that the users had entered for "Month"?

I too would love to get more context, but just for additional laughs. There's no way in hell that this is not a huge wtf. And why would you let users enter just anything for a month field? Are you holding a contest?

I don't know what the difference is between a "good problem" and a "bad problem", but this is most certainly not a good solution to any real (non-contrived) problem.

Nagesh · 2012-05-23 Reply Admin

Nagesh (fake):
Monsoon month is missing for Indian compatibility

Monsoon is season only. Not Month, madarchod.

Nagesh · 2012-05-23 Reply Admin

Today I was reading this interested blog.

https://msmvps.com/blogs/jon_skeet/archive/2009/11/02/omg-ponies-aka-humanity-epic-fail.aspx

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

Nagesh (haker schoolboy):
Nagesh (fake):
Monsoon month is missing for Indian compatibility

Monsoon is season only. Not Month, madarchod.

Your ain't karma to be using that word for anyone anytime. Did ur mother ain't love you?

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

AN AMAZING CODER:
Codd:
Ken B.:
Gyxi:
That could make sense in some cases I guess if you want to use it for joining and do not want a 'magic number' in your database. Is Month=1 January or February. A 'Month'-table could tell you.
Not when the table consists of a single column.
There is no need to store a redundant number. The numbering is implied by the sequence of the entries as stored in the table.
I know you're just trolling, but you can't guarantee the ordering of results without an ORDER BY.

Oh dear, I can see you weren't paying attention. ORDER BY affects how the data is displayed. Please note I said "The numbering is implied by the sequence of the entries as stored in the table." That isn't going to change randomly every time you do a month lookup.

Nagesh · 2012-05-23 Reply Admin

Nagesh(fake):
Nagesh:
Nagesh (fake):
Monsoon month is missing for Indian compatibility

Monsoon is season only. Not Month, madarchod.
Your ain't karma to be using that word for anyone anytime. Did ur mother ain't love you?

Stop copy using words in message you not know meaning of, madarchod!

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

GWO:
Captcha: luptatum - The greatest werewolf jazz pianist of all time.

Made me howl for Art.

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

At least it's not a set of key/value pairs...

CAPTCHA: minim - a palindrome describing what the noted table both is and isn't.

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

Nagesh:
Silfax:
Zemm:
TGV:
Judging by the fact that both NULL and the empty string occur, I infer it's not Oracle. At least something is sane.

Judging by the mysql> prompt I'd say it's not Oracle also.

I thought that mysql was Oracle these days.

Either way the table is missing Octobuary.
COrect: Java & MySQL are being owned by Oracle. I ain't think it's a good idea of DB company to be ownership of temporary free DB.

There are other free DBs that are better (postgres) than mysql. If you're absolutely in love though, just use the GPL version.

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

Nagesh (giant idiot):
Nagesh:
Nagesh (giant idiot):
Nagesh:
Monsoon month is missing for Indian compatibility

Monsoon is season only. Not Month, madarchod.
Your ain't karma to be using that word for anyone anytime. Did ur mother ain't love you?

Stop copy using words in message I not know meaning of, madarchod!

FTFY.

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

This is obviously all wrong. Hard-coding magic strings in a database table like this is something that should never be done. It should contain the path of an XML file instead, which can then be opened and read from to get the correct month name.

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

Toolbag:
TroelsL:
Why on Earth would you even have a MONTH table anyway? In case "they" decide to change them?
In fact, they can change.
You may not remember these old times, when the French tore down monarchy and decided to stand for a "Republic" thing. Well, they also decided to change days and months for almost 14 years.

Weeks were ten days long, months were 3 weeks long, and added 6 days to make it even with Earth rotation.

You may check "Republican Calendar" on wikipedia and laugh about how we French are lame, I grant you this right.

However, never assume months are granted :)

Wow.. you just blew my mind. I will never rely on DateTime again - in case they change that, I'll have to redo all my code.

Did you also know that 0 is relatively new invention? I better create a NUMBERS table in case they invent new ones of those as well.

;)

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

Jan Doggen:
Let me guess: - The backdoor password is 3TCA12L4PDS7 - The answer to the secret question is NO

Uh Oh

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

GWO:
The real WTF is saying "none are", and not "none is". None takes singular verb forms.

More than one of them could be the case, and "none" can take plural verb forms.

When none is a subject, the agreement is often plural (are, for instance). None of us are perfect, says the Reverend Dr. Chasuble in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. Wilde was not intending to portray Dr. Chasuble as incapable of speaking correct English. The myth that none takes only singular agreement on the verb lives on despite many refutations. Serious handbooks of grammar and style don't represent it as ungrammatical. (Of course, the idiots Strunk and White do in their clueless book The Elements of Style; but they get almost everything wrong.)

(source: Geoff Pullum at languagelog. Pullum is a renowned linguist, co-author of the Cambride Grammar of the English Language.)

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

iwoas:
It may be a batch file called select.bat preceded by prompt mysql$g.

Wouldn't the '*' then be interpreted as all files in the directory (you'd need to escape it to pass it as a parameter)

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

AN AMAZING CODER:
Codd:
Ken B.:
Gyxi:
That could make sense in some cases I guess if you want to use it for joining and do not want a 'magic number' in your database. Is Month=1 January or February. A 'Month'-table could tell you.
Not when the table consists of a single column.
There is no need to store a redundant number. The numbering is implied by the sequence of the entries as stored in the table.

I know you're just trolling, but you can't guarantee the ordering of results without an ORDER BY.

Easy ORDER BY TABLE ORDER (they all come up blue when I save them in notepad++ so that must be valid)

Defiler · 2012-05-23 Reply Admin

The real WTF is why wasn't this table base-64 encoded for security reasons.

-The 'Why can't I pass a pointer through a socket?' Bloviator

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

An Old Hacker:
Zemm:
TGV:
Judging by the fact that both NULL and the empty string occur, I infer it's not Oracle. At least something is sane.

Judging by the mysql> prompt I'd say it's not Oracle also.

Win.

Errr, and who owns MySQL ? Right...

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

And so by the same logic MySQL is the same thing as Java?

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

One of the first Daily WTF that actually made me laugh out loud as soon as I saw it, without even reading the accompanying "story" ... thanks for brightening up my day! :)

lolwtf · 2012-05-23 Reply Admin

Hugh:
iwoas:
It may be a batch file called select.bat preceded by prompt mysql$g.
Wouldn't the '*' then be interpreted as all files in the directory (you'd need to escape it to pass it as a parameter)

The script actually ignores its parameters and just does this hardcoded query. Or maybe it doesn't even do a query and just prints this hardcoded table.

2012-05-23 Reply Admin

Steven:
Duh. Everybody knows OCTOBER and NOVEMBER should be capitalized... (zeroth?)

So set the collation to case-insensitive and there'll never be a problem. Duh.:-)

Representative Table

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