• Bill (unregistered) in reply to Manni

    That's because you're missing the subtle beauty of these WTFs. So many folks on here obsessively focus on the "how" and "what" of the post, dissecting and refactoring every line of code, instead of revelling in the "Why" of the post.

    What I took away from this was the timeless exercise of overlooking of a simple, elegant solution in favor of a overblown, overengineered and underthought solution simply based on who suggested it.

    BTW, Y2K was not a WTF because of 2 digit years. Back when bytes cost bucks, every character mattered. Those applications were, by and large, designed properly to meet the needs of the time and within the constraints of the time. The WTF was in the lack of preparation for the inevitable conflict with new constraints.

  • Bill (unregistered) in reply to lizardfoot

    Not possible; the linked list was only patented in the last year or so.

  • Mike James (unregistered)

    I remember the IBM mainframe running one of the VM CMS operating systems. We owned several virtual machines, one belonged to our research group. On this machine we ran a few batch jobs, but mainly a Rexx script that for some reason would send a cheerful insult via a console message randomly to any of its friends. If you sent it a message back it would insult you again with a different message. Of course the batch VM was listed as a friend in the script. Not long after this piece of stupidity went live it sent itself an insult. One entire weekend of CPU time later our project recieved a bill for several thousand pounds worth of CPU. And all it did was insult itself all weekend. That was a dual processor 22MHZ scientific machine with 100 users in about 1986

  • Marcin (unregistered) in reply to KenW
    KenW:
    Manni:
    I wish I could have saved a few minutes and not read that article. I appreciate the style, but lately these WTFs are like book reports and take their sweet ol' time getting to the point. <snip>

    With something so long, you'd expect a better money-shot.

    I wish you could have saved a few minutes more and not bothered to post.

    What is it with you people? If you don't like the damned articles, don't come to the site to read them. If it bothers you not to have articles to read, start your own site and post stuff you like.

    Quit complaining. Either visit here or don't, but don't waste our time with your whining.

    What is it with you people who chew-out people who post opinions? Can't you just keep your opinions to yourself, and start your own site with moderation to keep out opinions?

  • (cs) in reply to KenW
    KenW:
    lizardfoot:
    Back in the old days, we used stacks of rocks and poked at them with our clubs. I remember one co-worker, Oog was his name, he was a real laugh riot sometimes. One day, while he was stacking up a complex bit of double linked list code

    So easy, a caveman could do it.

    As a caveman, I for one am offended by this remark. :-) At least, I presume being in this about 30 years or so makes me a "caveman" by comparison with some folks around here.

    Registered users don' need no steekin' captcha!

  • (cs) in reply to Manni
    Manni:
    With something so long, you'd expect a better money-shot.

    Umm... that's what she said?

  • basteve (unregistered) in reply to bstorer
    bstorer:
    Everybody knows that any good program should grow into an operating system.

    You must be an emacs user.

  • joomama (unregistered) in reply to phaedrus
    phaedrus:
    bstorer:
    Everybody knows that any good program should grow into an operating system.

    So, when do you think they're going to merge HURD into Emacs?

    What do you mean when? I thought HURD was a proper subset of Emacs. In the next decade Emacs will reach self awareness.

  • (cs) in reply to KenW
    KenW:
    lizardfoot:
    Back in the old days, we used stacks of rocks and poked at them with our clubs. I remember one co-worker, Oog was his name, he was a real laugh riot sometimes. One day, while he was stacking up a complex bit of double linked list code

    So easy, a caveman could do it.

    Ugh! Ugh ungaa bungaa, you insensitive clod!

  • No one important (unregistered) in reply to Mike James
    Mike James:
    I remember the IBM mainframe running one of the VM CMS operating systems. We owned several virtual machines, one belonged to our research group. On this machine we ran a few batch jobs, but mainly a Rexx script that for some reason would send a cheerful insult via a console message randomly to any of its friends. If you sent it a message back it would insult you again with a different message. Of course the batch VM was listed as a friend in the script. Not long after this piece of stupidity went live it sent itself an insult. One entire weekend of CPU time later our project recieved a bill for several thousand pounds worth of CPU. And all it did was insult itself all weekend. That was a dual processor 22MHZ scientific machine with 100 users in about 1986

    Oh my god! That is possibly one of the funniest things I have ever read! The only thing funnier would be when the department head demanded to know what had been running that cost all that money, and was delivered a transcript. Computer: Dickhead Computer: Bastard Computer: Idiot .... and so on.

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