• poo (unregistered)
    Dave's approach was to handle each individual case as it came up, generally with no notice to the other coders assisting him, or even any comments explaining the changes. The resulting code was a thorny thicket of redundant functions which were subsequently copy-and-pasted across the rest of the codebase, each time repeating about 75% of the code of the previous iteration.
    Make no doubt, he was absolutely a fine coder

    I have doubts.

  • Ryan (unregistered)

    Scott exclaimed "WE WILL TEST NOT SOFTWARE BEFORE IT SHIPS!"

    The software will work not properly.

    This comment is second not.

  • Drew (unregistered)

    Except for the orswellian approach, this is pretty much exactly what happens here.

    Anyone looking for an OSS software engineer?

  • (cs)

    Typos in the story seem to be par for the course here (and I cursorily spotted 4 or 5 glaring ones in this one), but when you screw up the main punchline of the story, in BOLD AND CAPS no less, that's a bit much, don't you think?

  • Anon (unregistered)

    "To be fair though, this wasn't entirely Dave's fault - while his freewheeling design style certainally didn't help the situation, the choice of Access to drive the data behind the application."

    The choice of Access to drive the data behind the application....what?

  • (cs)

    TRWTF is this sentence: "WE WILL TEST NOT SOFTWARE BEFORE IT SHIPS!"

    What will we then test if not the software?

    (this comment has been tested before it ships)

  • Buddy (unregistered)

    As deadlines loom, I found this to be a fairly accurate progression of standards:

    "We're gonna run a tight ship, everything fully tested and documented."

    "As far as documentation, just put in the headings."

    "Make sure you test, documentation we can get someone to do later."

    "Just get it done, as long as it works, that's what matters."

    "You got a clean compile, right? Ship it!"

  • highphilosopher (unregistered)

    Wait, you guys test software? I thought that's why they made bug trackers.

  • Boomonster (unregistered)

    TRWTF is people so toxic that it's a good business decision to fund their business rather than let them into yours.

  • Ocson (unregistered)

    Pr00fread No cumment b4 it posts!

  • (cs)
    "We can't spend all of our time on problems which the customers haven't reported yet."
    Right!
    "If there haven't been any bug reports on something, then obviously they don't need it fixed yet! We should be focusing on getting the features ready and not fixing some little feature which the customers don't use."
    I agree!
    "Microsoft is always sending out beta versions to users and according to the industry press, they don't do any in-house testing until a complaint is made."
    Really?
    "WE WILL TEST NOT SOFTWARE BEFORE IT SHIPS!"
    Wait...What?!
  • beentheredonethat (unregistered) in reply to ochrist
    ochrist:
    TRWTF is this sentence: "WE WILL TEST NOT SOFTWARE BEFORE IT SHIPS!"

    What will we then test if not the software?

    (this comment has been tested before it ships)

    Oh really? ... has been ... ships? Please google "stones glass houses".
  • (cs) in reply to beentheredonethat
    beentheredonethat:
    Oh really? ... has been ... ships? Please google "stones glass houses".

    Maybe you should just adjust your sarcasm/humo(u)r detector?

  • (cs)

    This type of thing is common practice in embedded systems. Mainly because there is not file system available and not way to add resources to executable files. No a WTF!

  • beentheredonethat (unregistered) in reply to ochrist
    ochrist:
    beentheredonethat:
    Oh really? ... has been ... ships? Please google "stones glass houses".

    Maybe you should just adjust your sarcasm/humo(u)r detector?

    To what? Somewhere between "non-existant" and "My grandfather told me this funny thing yesterday ..."?

    Do you still laugh when you see "All your bases are belong to us"?

    Purposely misspelling went out of style (and way out of funny) the 3rd or 4th time around with lolcatz some years ago. And doing it while bashing others for typos never went into style. Thank you, come again!

  • Anonymous (unregistered)

    Oh wow... this sounds familiar. Right now we have a beta product that is hailed as being the company's next big thing, a perfect complement to their existing best-of-breed toolset. It was bought from a dying competitor in a "nearly finished" state but the company big-wigs don't want to risk losing resources from their primary toolset so the dictum is "we will only fix bugs in this product if the customer raises them!". The only problem? There are no customers. It's a beta product, it lacks polish and nobody is interested in forking out license fees for a barely finished product. No customers, no bug reports, no fixes. The code just stagnates in source control, wishing for better times.

  • Gray Falcon (unregistered)

    [Insert Microsoft Windows Vista joke here.]

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Gray Falcon
    Gray Falcon:
    [Insert Microsoft Windows Vista joke here.]
    Three operating systems walk into a bar; one has a nun, one has a talking dog and the other has a ten inch pianist...
  • Anon (unregistered)

    Ironically, this is the same process TDWTF uses for proof-reading posts.

  • storray expert (unregistered)

    WE WILL NOT GRAMMAR

  • (cs) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    Ironically, this is the same process TDWTF uses for proof-reading posts.
    QFT
  • Adam (unregistered) in reply to beentheredonethat

    Ripping off the Simpsons never goes out of style.

    Captcha: vindico|ocibniv - damn the lack of a backwards c!

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to frits
    frits:
    This type of thing is common practice in embedded systems. Mainly because there is not file system available and not way to add resources to executable files. No a WTF!

    TRWTF here is that this comment is a post too late.

  • (cs)
    To be fair though, this wasn't entirely Dave's fault - while his freewheeling design style certainally didn't help the situation, the choice of Access to drive the data behind the application.
    Sure, that sentence makes perfect sense.
  • Charles (unregistered)

    I can't see the WTF. This is exactly what you would do with embedded development, if, for example, you didn't have a file system allowing you to access the files.

  • (cs)

    Mark, please do us all (and yourself) a favor and have someone else read the article before you post it.

  • Jim (unregistered) in reply to storray expert
    storray expert:
    WE WILL NOT GRAMMAR

    Hey! It's "grammer" here, young man!

    TRWTF: Why Alex takes such abuse for posting stories intended to amuse

  • (cs) in reply to Charles
    Charles:
    I can't see the WTF. This is exactly what you would do with embedded development, if, for example, you didn't have a file system allowing you to access the files.

    The Winner!

  • Anonymous (unregistered)

    Come on guys, it's obviously EVE Online.

  • (cs)

    Sadly this sounds like the vast majority of companies I've wasted my career working for; some idiot who doesn't belong in business but has a family member/inheritance that they can use to stay afloat even when they don't do anything right and should go bankrupt. Yet, because of the family/inheritance that keeps pumping money into them, they stay around and make life miserable for their employees with ridiculous decisions and being clueless as to their business.

  • fp (unregistered)

    Is this article about every product sold by Adobe, apart from Photoshop?

  • Herohtar (unregistered) in reply to beentheredonethat
    beentheredonethat:
    ochrist:
    beentheredonethat:
    Oh really? ... has been ... ships? Please google "stones glass houses".

    Maybe you should just adjust your sarcasm/humo(u)r detector?

    To what? Somewhere between "non-existant" and "My grandfather told me this funny thing yesterday ..."?

    Do you still laugh when you see "All your bases are belong to us"?

    Purposely misspelling went out of style (and way out of funny) the 3rd or 4th time around with lolcatz some years ago. And doing it while bashing others for typos never went into style. Thank you, come again!

    There was a lot more bashing in your comment than his.

  • (cs)

    I hate the Scott Slokums of the world. Not because they're evil, or even unlikeable -- many of them are the most engaging, earnest, genuinely nice people you would ever meet. But people with the same level of business sense see Scott, and think "hey, I can do that too", then they perpetrate all manner of corporate WTFery, occasionally destroying the odd life or two as their ill-constructed would-be Atlantis sinks beneath the waves. Meantime, Scott and his family wealth sail on, completely oblivious that he is setting the worst possible example to entrepreneurs everywhere.

  • MadJo@Work (unregistered)

    Who was Jay O. then? and how did he gain anything from all this?

  • Pffft (unregistered) in reply to Herohtar
    beentheredonethat:
    Do you still laugh when you see "All your bases are belong to us"?

    I lold

  • grammer nasty (unregistered)

    Is it so different from "ASK NOT WHAT YOUR COUNTRY CAN DO FOR YOU"? I thought most people considered that a good piece of rhetoric.

  • (cs) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    "To be fair though, this wasn't entirely Dave's fault - while his freewheeling design style certainally didn't help the situation, the choice of Access to drive the data behind the application."

    The choice of Access to drive the data behind the application....what?

    The choice of Access to drive the data behind the application, period. It was clear enough, wasn't it?

    Yes, yes, it's a joke. Like Access.

  • (cs)

    TESTING NOT SOFTWARE BEFORE IT SHIPS is perfectly standard and accepted in the realm of embedded software. You fail.

  • Peter (unregistered) in reply to beentheredonethat
    beentheredonethat:
    ochrist:
    beentheredonethat:
    Oh really? ... has been ... ships? Please google "stones glass houses".

    Maybe you should just adjust your sarcasm/humo(u)r detector?

    Purposely misspelling went out of style (and way out of funny) the 3rd or 4th time around with lolcatz some years ago.
    What misspelling are you talking about? I've read and re-read ochrist's original post, and I can't see a misspelling.
  • Ken (unregistered)

    Actually, I think there is a point at which you can say 'we won't bother fixing that bug until someone reports it'.

    However, that point comes a long way after 'we won't test the software at all'.

    This is why we have bug tracking software.

    I mean, we've released software, and it's been 4 years before someone has spotted a bug - not because no one is using the software, but because no one uses that particular feature. If your software is safety critical, or difficult to patch (eg in an embedded system) then things are different, but in your word processor, if there's a bug in the 'change all numbers to nonary' button, who cares...

    In a way this can be a useful way of finding out which functions to remove - deliberately put bugs in functions you suspect no one ever uses ;)

  • egg (unregistered)

    TEST NOT WHAT YOUR CUSTOMER CAN DO FOR YOU... BUT WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR YOUR CUSTOMER!!

  • (cs) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    frits:
    This type of thing is common practice in embedded systems. Mainly because there is not file system available and not way to add resources to executable files. No a WTF!

    TRWTF here is that this comment is a post too late.

    Whoosh!

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Ken
    Ken:
    In a way this can be a useful way of finding out which functions to remove - deliberately put bugs in functions you suspect no one ever uses ;)
    This is pure genius, I'm now replacing all my metrics logging with the "deliberate bugs" pattern.
  • (cs) in reply to beentheredonethat
    beentheredonethat:
    Do you still laugh when you see "All your bases are belong to us"?

    Base. Singular.

    That is all.

  • (cs) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    "To be fair though, this wasn't entirely Dave's fault - while his freewheeling design style certainally didn't help the situation, the choice of Access to drive the data behind the application."

    The choice of Access to drive the data behind the application....what?

    The choice of Access to drive the data behnd the application accidentally the whole thing!

  • Blue Collar (unregistered) in reply to ObiWayneKenobi
    ObiWayneKenobi:
    Sadly this sounds like the vast majority of companies I've wasted my career working for; some idiot who doesn't belong in business but has a family member/inheritance that they can use to stay afloat even when they don't do anything right and should go bankrupt. Yet, because of the family/inheritance that keeps pumping money into them, they stay around and make life miserable for their employees with ridiculous decisions and being clueless as to their business.

    I totally agreen, and the worst part about it, it's usually some rich kid/guy's hobby shop for feeling important and dabbling in technology. Little do they know they are playing with people's careers, their livelihood, and that is just plain wrong.

  • Blue Collar (unregistered) in reply to Blue Collar
    Blue Collar:
    ObiWayneKenobi:
    Sadly this sounds like the vast majority of companies I've wasted my career working for; some idiot who doesn't belong in business but has a family member/inheritance that they can use to stay afloat even when they don't do anything right and should go bankrupt. Yet, because of the family/inheritance that keeps pumping money into them, they stay around and make life miserable for their employees with ridiculous decisions and being clueless as to their business.

    I totally agreen, and the worst part about it, it's usually some rich kid/guy's hobby shop for feeling important and dabbling in technology. Little do they know they are playing with people's careers, their livelihood, and that is just plain wrong.

    LOL, agreen.. today must be typo-tuesday

  • Chris V (unregistered)

    What is this nonsense about Microsoft not testing its software before it ships. I worked at Microsoft as a tester. And yes, we did test continuously before our software shipped.

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Chris V
    Chris V:
    What is this nonsense about Microsoft not testing its software before it ships. I worked at Microsoft as a tester. And yes, we did test continuously before our software shipped.
    Great job on Vista. I assume that crack-smoking was mandatory for your division?
  • DCRoss (unregistered) in reply to beentheredonethat
    beentheredonethat:
    Oh really? ... has been ... ships? Please google "stones glass houses".

    No, I'm pretty sure that Glass Houses was Skinny Puppy, not the Rolling Stones.

    Unless you're thinking of a Billy Joel album, but then you're on your own.

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