• noland (unregistered)

    This story reminds me very much of a special day at my first job: Nothing happend and I really left on time. Epic story!

    Besides: Status of coffee box: null – I'm heading for the shop (sponsors welcome).

  • Jens (unregistered)

    Search engine optimized article - is this turning into Huffington Post?

  • (cs)

    First post by guest author Bobby Tables?

  • Herr Otto Flick (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward:
    Coyne:
    ...if, by "all", you mean "nothing". And I mean, "nothing", because "null" is truly "nothing".
    A common misconception. Null is not Nothing (unless you're programming in VB.net). Null is undefined. It means we don't know what the value is.

    Please also note that I realise Null strings, Null modems etc have a different interpretation of the term Null. A null string for instance, fits your description, but in reality it's not a null string; it's an empty string.

    In real languages (C, C++), NULL has an extremely precisely defined meaning:

    #define NULL 0

    Its defined by C89. It's best not to be pedantic if you get this sort of thing wrong.

  • (cs) in reply to Nick N.
    Nick N.:
    I'm disturbed that no one seems to care that Alex was clearly murdered mid-post.
    But we do care. It's just that Alex would have wanted us to continue the inane comments.
  • c (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward:
    Anonymous Coward:
    Coyne:
    ...if, by "all", you mean "nothing". And I mean, "nothing", because "null" is truly "nothing".
    A common misconception. Null is not Nothing (unless you're programming in VB.net). Null is undefined. It means we don't know what the value is.

    Null is "nothing" at least it is so in SQL and C/C++/C#/Java "Undefined" means that something can be defined (some memory has already been allocated) null means that the value isn't even undefined, it just doesn't exist

    An uninitialized pointer in C++ has an undefined value (as opposed to Java where either you're not allowed to de-reference it, or it will be null, depending on context) and the C++ pointer may well not have any memory allocated apart from storage of the pointer value itself.

  • (cs) in reply to Nick N.
    Nick N.:
    I'm disturbed that no one seems to care that Alex was clearly murdered mid-post.
    What is that word 'care'? Please explain.
  • Dave W (unregistered)

    I can't add WTF as a Comment on its own, some thingy declares it as spam!!!

    WTF!

  • Your Name (unregistered) in reply to c
    c:
    Anonymous Coward:
    Anonymous Coward:
    Coyne:
    ...if, by "all", you mean "nothing". And I mean, "nothing", because "null" is truly "nothing".
    A common misconception. Null is not Nothing (unless you're programming in VB.net). Null is undefined. It means we don't know what the value is.

    Null is "nothing" at least it is so in SQL and C/C++/C#/Java "Undefined" means that something can be defined (some memory has already been allocated) null means that the value isn't even undefined, it just doesn't exist

    An uninitialized pointer in C++ has an undefined value (as opposed to Java where either you're not allowed to de-reference it, or it will be null, depending on context) and the C++ pointer may well not have any memory allocated apart from storage of the pointer value itself.

    Right, which is why an uninitialized pointer is not necessarily a null pointer.

  • @MrLago (unregistered) in reply to Noname
    Noname:
    Well, The Daily WTF decided to produce its own WTF today ;-)

    And that's a fact! LOL

  • (cs)

    Om...

  • (cs) in reply to Leif
    Leif:
    A self-referential WTF. Somebody should notify Douglas Hofstadter.
    Achilles: Why hello, Mr. Tortoise! Have you read today's Daily WTF? Tortoise: I most certainly have! Quite clever if you ask me. Achilles: Oh? And what part did you find the most clever? Tortoise: The article text of "null" which made me say to myself, "WTF?". And then I realized it was a WTF inside a WTF! Really quite clever. And what was your favorite part, Achilles? Achilles: Oh, the Careline part. Tortoise: Really? How so? Achilles: Because no one gives a F!
  • (cs) in reply to PedanticCurmudgeon
    PedanticCurmudgeon:
    Nick N.:
    I'm disturbed that no one seems to care that Alex was clearly murdered mid-post.
    But we do care. It's just that Alex would have wanted us to continue the inane comments.
    Right. This comment thread are at least as relevant to the article as any other on here.
  • (cs)

    Yo dawg, I herd you like WTFs...

  • Azdak (unregistered)

    I used to be an article like you, then i took a null to the knee.

  • My Name Is Missing (unregistered)

    To match my name, the content is also missing.

  • (cs)

    You're not seeing what's happened here? The Daily WTF has no sponsors (maybe something scared them off) and as a result there is no money for writing up new articles. The extremities are still twitching but that will only last until the hosting account fails to be paid.

  • Kowell (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous

    All hail null!

  • Null (unregistered)

    Captcha: nulla

  • linepro (unregistered)

    File not found?

  • Rawr (unregistered) in reply to whiznat
    whiznat:
    Leif:
    A self-referential WTF. Somebody should notify Douglas Hofstadter.
    Achilles: Why hello, Mr. Tortoise! Have you read today's Daily WTF? Tortoise: I most certainly have! Quite clever if you ask me. Achilles: Oh? And what part did you find the most clever? Tortoise: The article text of "null" which made me say to myself, "WTF?". And then I realized it was a WTF inside a WTF! Really quite clever. And what was your favorite part, Achilles? Achilles: Oh, the Careline part. Tortoise: Really? How so? Achilles: Because no one gives a F!

    How did he catch up to the tortoise to have this conversation? I thought it was "proven" that catching up was impossible!

  • foo (unregistered) in reply to Herr Otto Flick
    Herr Otto Flick:
    Anonymous Coward:
    Coyne:
    ...if, by "all", you mean "nothing". And I mean, "nothing", because "null" is truly "nothing".
    A common misconception. Null is not Nothing (unless you're programming in VB.net). Null is undefined. It means we don't know what the value is.

    Please also note that I realise Null strings, Null modems etc have a different interpretation of the term Null. A null string for instance, fits your description, but in reality it's not a null string; it's an empty string.

    In real languages (C, C++), NULL has an extremely precisely defined meaning:

    #define NULL 0

    Its defined by C89. It's best not to be pedantic if you get this sort of thing wrong.

    He was talking about Null, and you reply with NULL. That's a completely different name. It's best not to be pedantic if you get this sort of thing wrong.

  • airdrik (unregistered) in reply to Alex van den Hoogen
    Alex van den Hoogen:
    Where are the null?
    The null are everywhere and nowhere, in everything and nothing. You cannot escape them, but you cannot embrace them. There is nothing you can do but let the null be nothing within you, and in so doing there will be no null.
  • foo (unregistered) in reply to Rawr
    Rawr:
    whiznat:
    Leif:
    A self-referential WTF. Somebody should notify Douglas Hofstadter.
    Achilles: Why hello, Mr. Tortoise! Have you read today's Daily WTF? Tortoise: I most certainly have! Quite clever if you ask me. Achilles: Oh? And what part did you find the most clever? Tortoise: The article text of "null" which made me say to myself, "WTF?". And then I realized it was a WTF inside a WTF! Really quite clever. And what was your favorite part, Achilles? Achilles: Oh, the Careline part. Tortoise: Really? How so? Achilles: Because no one gives a F!

    How did he catch up to the tortoise to have this conversation? I thought it was "proven" that catching up was impossible!

    He was still behind. How far? Null.

  • (cs) in reply to foo

    He's just talking very loudly. How loud? Null.

  • airdrik (unregistered) in reply to Jon Gjengset
    Jon Gjengset:
    The question now becomes, is it the string "null", or a true null (i.e. void)?
    It must be the string "null", because we have gotten a few nulls recently (e.g. the articles for 12/7, 12/1). We just didn't see them because the site doesn't display null articles.

    TRWTF is anything which interprets the string value of null as anything. Even for display purposes, you should use special cases to handle when something is null.

  • inception (unregistered) in reply to AnonymousMouse
  • c (unregistered) in reply to Herr Otto Flick
    Herr Otto Flick:

    In real languages (C, C++), NULL has an extremely precisely defined meaning:

    #define NULL 0 [snip]

    Surely *several* precisely defined meanings, depending what the context makes it implicitly cast to? :-)
  • (cs) in reply to Your Name
    Your Name:
    c:
    Anonymous Coward:
    Anonymous Coward:
    Coyne:
    ...if, by "all", you mean "nothing". And I mean, "nothing", because "null" is truly "nothing".
    A common misconception. Null is not Nothing (unless you're programming in VB.net). Null is undefined. It means we don't know what the value is.

    Null is "nothing" at least it is so in SQL and C/C++/C#/Java "Undefined" means that something can be defined (some memory has already been allocated) null means that the value isn't even undefined, it just doesn't exist

    An uninitialized pointer in C++ has an undefined value (as opposed to Java where either you're not allowed to de-reference it, or it will be null, depending on context) and the C++ pointer may well not have any memory allocated apart from storage of the pointer value itself.

    Right, which is why an uninitialized pointer is not necessarily a null pointer.

    Which just goes to show that you need to define your ground: I was thinking of SQL null. In that domain, if we were talking about a particular column in a row such as "gender", null means we have no answer; we know nothing.

    "I hear nothing, I see nothing, I know nothing!" -Sgt. Schultz

  • null (unregistered)

    Uh oh. Akismet says your comment was span. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. But I'm taking their word on it. Try again!

  • (cs) in reply to c
    c:
    Herr Otto Flick:

    In real languages (C, C++), NULL has an extremely precisely defined meaning:

    #define NULL 0 [snip]

    Surely *several* precisely defined meanings, depending what the context makes it implicitly cast to? :-)
    Since we're nitpicking, that feature isn't part of the language is it?
  • sammy (unregistered)

    The real WTF is NULL.

  • justsomedudette (unregistered) in reply to whiznat
    whiznat:
    Leif:
    A self-referential WTF. Somebody should notify Douglas Hofstadter.
    Achilles: Why hello, Mr. Tortoise! Have you read today's Daily WTF? Tortoise: I most certainly have! Quite clever if you ask me. Achilles: Oh? And what part did you find the most clever? Tortoise: The article text of "null" which made me say to myself, "WTF?". And then I realized it was a WTF inside a WTF! Really quite clever. And what was your favorite part, Achilles? Achilles: Oh, the Careline part. Tortoise: Really? How so? Achilles: Because no one gives a F!

    This is one of the best responses I've read on here, reminds me of uni :)

    CAPTCHA: tego or not tego, as today's article appears to be

  • Anonymous (unregistered)

    null!

    Null it is!

  • Carlos (unregistered)

    I guess Alex had to leave in a rush and his cat finished posting the article. The style looks typical of a cat.

  • (cs)

    TRWTF is null being a WORD. That's at least two bytes, if it's running on x86!

  • Unicorn #8157 (unregistered)

    I regret to inform you that Alex unexpectedly passed while writing this entry. Please keep his family in your prayers. The Unicorn Brigade will be discussing whether it is better to scrap this site entirely or continue its good work in the next couple of days. Please await our updates.

    Thank you, Unicorn #8157

  • Today's WTF (unregistered) in reply to Carlos

    404 Page Not Found

  • 中Red Dragon 中 (unregistered)

    Null mate, you are!

  • (cs) in reply to The Real WTF
    The Real WTF:
    NULL post FTW!

    FTFY

  • PaulaBean (unregistered) 
    package test;

public class paulaBean {

  private String paula = null;

  public String getPaula() {
    return paula;
  }
}
  • Some damn Yank (unregistered) in reply to Nick N.
    Nick N.:
    I'm disturbed that no one seems to care that Alex was clearly murdered mid-post.
    Then who pressed the "Enter" key to submit the post? [cue dramatic music: dun Dun DUN!]
  • Gerald (unregistered)

    Dear Database Architect,

    Directive 595 is as follows.

    "Not null constraints give lack of flexibility, more costly evolution, inhibit the use of the database acting as a service to applications and make it an inhibitor to evolution."

    As such, please remove from all production databases.

    Sincerely, Chief Architect Gerald

  • &EYE (unregistered)

    SELECT ISNULL(ARTICLE,'null') FROM THEDAILYWTF WITH (FAILLOCK)

    laskdfa ksd l;fajs;f dkfas;,

  • Anonymous Coward (unregistered) in reply to foo
    foo:
    He was talking about Null, and you reply with NULL. That's a completely different name. It's best not to be pedantic if you get this sort of thing wrong.
    <Thumbs up> That's like saying writable is spelled writtable because PHP says so.
  • @MrLago (unregistered) in reply to PaulaBean
    PaulaBean:
    package test;

    public class paulaBean {
    

    private String paula = null;
    

    public String getPaula() {
return paula;
}
}

    I know the compiler undersands it and all that stuff... But it hurts on my chest when I see a class name not starting with capital letter... :S

  • Today's WTF (unregistered) in reply to Gerald

    So Chief Architect Gerald works for the Daily WTF? Do they not check references?

  • Hakuin Ekaku (unregistered)

    What is the sound of null?

  • (cs)

    Forget about CodeStock... Alex has gone to Nullapalooza.

  • (cs)

    FILE_NOT_FOUND;

Leave a comment on “Sponsor Appreciation, Careline, laskdfa ksd l;fajs;f dkfas;, and More”

Log In or post as a guest

Replying to comment #:

Log Out

« Return to Article