• trtrwtf (unregistered)
    the article:
    Despite passing the technical assessment with flying colors

    How, dare I ask, does he come by this information?

  • QJo (unregistered) in reply to swim
    swim:
    QJo:
    brazzy:
    Ah yes, the "every character is precious" school of variable naming. I once saw a program by someone who combined this with hungarian notation, eliminating all domain meaning from the variable names. The best part was that he was quite proud how much useful information this scheme conveyed...

    The really, really frightening thing here is that the variable names are just meaningful enough to convey the information that this appears to be an application for controlling a nuclear reactor.

    You're not allowed to use Java for a nuclear reactor. It's in the license.

    "not designed or intended for use in the design, construction, operation or maintenance of any nuclear facility."

    Seriously, I'm not making that up.

    That makes it even worse! Not only is this an application for controlling a nuclear reactor, it's doing it illegally!

    And who's to say it's not code for a commercial reactor somewhere? Maybe the contractor decided not to waste money going offshore (having read enough flame wars on TDWTF to learn that this is contentious) ... and instead went to a university to get it done even more cheaply? Electric power doesn't pay for itself, you know ...

  • QJo (unregistered) in reply to Too much free time
    Too much free time:
    Aaron continues, "good job, you've created all the variables. Now, what the $#@~! are they?!"

    XY co-ordinates of various items, which sound like...

    Pump Right B 1 to 5 Pump Left B 1 to 5

    Valve HB 1 to 4 Valve VB 1 to 4

    4 L&R pumps have 4H&V valves, and 1 set (left and right) has no valves? Not sure what the H and V would be. If V was a typo (repeated through copy&pasting), it could be C for hot and cold.

    TC 1 to 4 SI A and B VIL 1 to 4

    No idea on these. Turbine control? Steam Inlet?

    Rod Up, Down, Auto, 10, 5, 1 Perhaps for adjusting control rod(s) by 1/5/10 units at a time, up or down, or automaticaly.

    W A&B 1 to 4 and Warn (presumably they're all warnings of some type, 1 set of A and B for each set of H/V valves?).

    (Steam) Turbine, Trap (??), Gauge L and S, RodIn (Single control rod? Maybe it only has one), Reactor, Joint (??).

    SG 1 to 4. Steam gauges?

    So yeah, it sounds like it could be a (small) nuclear reactor. Though given the co-ords, it's more likely just a diagram of it, and the program lets the user rotate it and zoom and or whatever.

    I hope this post doesn't come out as garbage. Never tried this before.

    H and V could be "horizontal" and "vertical", I suppose.

    Good job. I nearly did this exercise myself.

  • Swedish tard (unregistered) in reply to beginend
    beginend:
    sorry for playing dumb... but besides the horrible naming and the lack of commenting, does anything speak against declaring your variables in one place, at the top? what makes that bad style per se?

    A variable should not exist outside of the scope where it is used. (Inside loops, ifs and whatever else)... It adds confusion to the code, and in maintenance the risk of using variables that should be left alone increases.

  • eVil (unregistered)

    Rod.... heheheh.

  • (cs) in reply to Too much free time

    Yeah, my first job out of college was like this. The application they had me work on had a Java class called 'ConstantsAndGlobals.java'. This class had 4000 (yes, that's four thousand) lines of variables that were used in various places in the application.

  • siby waly warny (unregistered) in reply to siax turbyl rodiny
    siax turbyl rodiny:
    Hey, I think I can read my name in there!

    Hey, me too!

  • A Gould (unregistered) in reply to steveC
    steveC:
    There are quite a few model reactors at various universities.

    And they're perfectly safe - they only emit model radiation.

    TRWTF is not only a university discriminating based on where you went to school (makes me think that they need to hire their own alumni just to keep their post-grad employment numbers up), but that they went back afterwards to hire a non-grad - that's gotta sting a little.

  • (cs) in reply to Sock Puppet #5
    Sock Puppet #5:
    Second, do I want Iranian exchange students getting-to-know the inner workings of our nuclear reactors?

    I think they already know. And if they didn't, the inner workings of your nuclear reactors are on Wikipedia.

  • sambot (unregistered) in reply to Zemm

    I came here to make sure someone made this.

  • trtrwtf (unregistered) in reply to Swedish tard
    Swedish tard:
    beginend:
    sorry for playing dumb... but besides the horrible naming and the lack of commenting, does anything speak against declaring your variables in one place, at the top? what makes that bad style per se?

    A variable should not exist outside of the scope where it is used. (Inside loops, ifs and whatever else)... It adds confusion to the code, and in maintenance the risk of using variables that should be left alone increases.

    In addition, if a variable is intended to be a field of the class it should be declared with an access modifier, and unless you've got a damned good reason that should be "private". (two good reasons would be inheritance and constants, neither of which apply here)

  • Reactor Operator (unregistered) in reply to Too much free time

    Rods in most reactors are operated in banks (groups) so have a single rod control is fairly common.

    Tc would typically be the inlet water temperature of the reactor. This is important as it has a direct impact on reactor power, moderating fast neutrons to thermal neutrons.

    SG is a steam generator in a primary/secondary reactor configuration. Water in one side steam out the other.

  • QJo (unregistered) in reply to A Gould
    A Gould:
    steveC:
    There are quite a few model reactors at various universities.

    And they're perfectly safe - they only emit model radiation.

    TRWTF is not only a university discriminating based on where you went to school (makes me think that they need to hire their own alumni just to keep their post-grad employment numbers up), but that they went back afterwards to hire a non-grad - that's gotta sting a little.

    Aargh! This is getting even worse! Not only did the contractors designing this application for controlling a nuclear reactor, let's not forget, not only were they too cost-cutting to even go offshore but couldn't even be bothered to go to a university whose alumni were worth their salt as programmers!

  • Sock Puppet #5 (unregistered)

    Wouldn't this be "Representative Line?"

  • Chernobyl Charlie (unregistered) in reply to Someone who can't be bothered to login from work
    Someone who can't be bothered to login from work:
    Chernobyl Charlie:
    Sock Puppet #5:
    QJo:
    brazzy:
    Ah yes, the "every character is precious" school of variable naming. I once saw a program by someone who combined this with hungarian notation, eliminating all domain meaning from the variable names. The best part was that he was quite proud how much useful information this scheme conveyed...

    The really, really frightening thing here is that the variable names are just meaningful enough to convey the information that this appears to be an application for controlling a nuclear reactor.

    Why would they have a nuclear reactor at a University? Did you read the article?

    Did you go to college or maybe do a little research??

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_reactors#Civilian_Research_and_Test_Reactors_Licensed_To_Operate

    ...do I even want to know why the U.S. Veterans Administration has a nuclear reactor?

    Given that the VA is primarily a medical undertaking, my guess would be to produce the crazy isotopes they need for things like PET scans radiation treatments and things like that. Or performing bizarre experiments on injured veterans for the sinister purpose of ushering in the Zombie Apocalypse and/or the New World Order.

  • NotBitterOrAnything (unregistered)

    Having worked for a "prestigious" ivy-league university as a non-alumni, I know what it's like. You're never going to be on the same job track as alumni coworkers, and even someone nearly incompetent will get raises or promotions when non-alums don't. Also, I think more management decisions are made on the golf course than on site. I managed to succeed only because I was working on relatively new and untested technology (at the time) that wasn't yet mainstream. Thank goodness I got out of there before the university's endowments and investments disappeared with Bernie Madoff.

  • QJo (unregistered) in reply to NotBitterOrAnything
    NotBitterOrAnything:
    Having worked for a "prestigious" ivy-league university as a non-alumni, I know what it's like. You're never going to be on the same job track as alumni coworkers, and even someone nearly incompetent will get raises or promotions when non-alums don't. Also, I think more management decisions are made on the golf course than on site. I managed to succeed only because I was working on relatively new and untested technology (at the time) that wasn't yet mainstream. Thank goodness I got out of there before the university's endowments and investments disappeared with Bernie Madoff.

    No, you probably didn't get promoted because you didn't know that the singular of "alumni" is "alumnus".

  • Kasper (unregistered) in reply to some guy

    Damn, you are right. How could we all have missed that?

  • (cs) in reply to Tim Reynolds
    Tim Reynolds:
    When I was a freshman in high school I wrote a space invaders clone without functions or arrays in qbasic. It had:

    MON1X, MON1Y ... MON32X, MON32Y defined.

    I became an expert at <backspace> <number> <down> <repeat>. I was pretty proud.

    Ah, reminds me of the good old days sitting next to the classroom radiator, coding on the Ti-92! It would store programs directly in plain Basic code, and memory was scarce (300kB available on the first one I had), so whenever I felt one of my programs was finished, I'd change all the variable names to a1, a2... Ugly code it was!

  • trtrwtf (unregistered)
    frits:
    trtrwtf:
    Hortical:
    trtrwtf:
    because the VA is a prime example of the sort of socialized medicine that's killing the American economy by, um, keeping veterans alive.
    Given your rant about overpopulation the other day, wouldn't you want people to go without healthcare and, you know, not reproduce?

    I say this for the benefit of other readers too - many of you have some cognitive dissonance to work out.

    I don't have a good answer for overpopulation in my back pocket, but I don't think that killing off the elderly would qualify as one.

    It could keep them from reproducing. Who needs more old people running around eating our food before we can because of early bird specials?

    True. Senior moms are really the biggest problem facing us today. Also, old people having sex is just icky.

  • Sam (unregistered) in reply to Sock Puppet #5
    Sock Puppet #5:
    I was using common sense: is nuclear technology something I want ungraduated physics students playing around with? In my school, several of the physics classes I took had the correct answers circulated, even on public websites. I alerted the professors each time I discovered this, and they never seemed to mind. Perhaps the purpose was to help the athletic program...at any rate, are those the kids you want working on reactors nestled in a large concentration of people?

    Second, do I want Iranian exchange students getting-to-know the inner workings of our nuclear reactors?

    Third, have you seen what many of the professors are capable of? I know you've been visiting this site long enough.

    A university != its undergrads, you realise... The actual research is done by postgrads and research staff (professors, fellows, etc). The only undergrads who had access to the old particle accelerator at my uni were people doing the particle physics course in the final year of an undergraduate master's degree; never mind any hardware that was actually dangerous. Rest assured that there will be no incompetent physics undergrads let loose upon this reactor (merely incompetent post-grad programmers, apparently).

  • NotBitterOrAnything (unregistered) in reply to QJo
    QJo:
    No, you probably didn't get promoted because you didn't know that the singular of "alumni" is "alumnus".

    Actually, I do, but I've found this is an excellent way to out those incompetent alumni who'd rather argue about latin grammar than content. Congratulations!

  • (cs)
    Hortical:
    You have some cognitive dissonance to work out.
    Your cognitive dissonance due to others' inconsistencies is your problem.
    blakeyrat:
    It helps to remember everybody here is a troll.
  • (cs)

    "Create variables!"

    "Captain, create which variables?"

    "ALL OF THEM!"

  • Anonymous Coward (unregistered) in reply to some guy
    some guy:
    TFA:
    Now, what the $#@~! are they?!

    ints.

    PLEASE MAKE IT A FEATURED COMMENT!

  • QJo (unregistered) in reply to NotBitterOrAnything
    NotBitterOrAnything:
    QJo:
    No, you probably didn't get promoted because you didn't know that the singular of "alumni" is "alumnus".

    Actually, I do, but I've found this is an excellent way to out those incompetent alumni who'd rather argue about latin grammar than content. Congratulations!

    Good call.

  • an exchange student from Iran (unregistered)

    Wonderful! I now know how American Zionist nuclear reactor works because of this article! And it resistant to StuxNet! I take secrets back to Iran.

  • trtrwtf (unregistered) in reply to frits
    frits:
    blakeyrat:
    It helps to remember everybody here is a troll.

    This is the most sensible thing I've read yet on this site. Not that there's a lot of competition on that front...

  • (cs) in reply to Sam
    Sam:
    A university != its undergrads, you realise... The actual research is done by postgrads and research staff (professors, fellows, etc).
    Unless you go to Reed (I had a friend who went there). Reed College: known primarily for a. its nuclear reactor, and b. its students taking a lot of drugs. How's that for scary?

    p.s. the singular of alumni is totally alumni. Why? Because English isn't Latin. We anglicize foreign words we borrow all the time, there's nothing wrong with that.

  • E. Pesker (unregistered) in reply to siby waly warny
    siby waly warny:
    siax turbyl rodiny:
    Hey, I think I can read my name in there!

    Hey, me too!

    well, i'm getting this cool 3D mushroom cloud thing if i cross my eyes slightly...

  • Some damn Yank (unregistered) in reply to Sam
    Sam:
    Sock Puppet #5:
    Why would they have a nuclear reactor at a University? Did you read the article?
    Research reactors exist.
    The public would be alarmed at the number of research reactors in the middle of major metropolitan areas. Georgia Tech in Atlanta, to name one. No need to steal the fuel for your dirty bomb, just park the truck bomb in the right spot... Meanwhile, the TSA fondles 6 year old girls in the name of fighting terrorism.
  • trtrwtf (unregistered) in reply to neminem
    neminem:
    Unless you go to Reed (I had a friend who went there). Reed College: known primarily for a. its nuclear reactor, and b. its students taking a lot of drugs. How's that for scary?

    And c. no grad students to be found

    (And to be fair: d. the reactor develops about as much power as a AAA battery - it's a research reactor run by the chemistry department)

  • Your Name (unregistered)

    I love how the recruiter sent him through the entire interview process only to tell him, "Oh he only hires alums."

    Fuck recruiters.

  • Sam (unregistered) in reply to neminem
    neminem:
    Unless you go to Reed (I had a friend who went there). Reed College: known primarily for a. its nuclear reactor, and b. its students taking a lot of drugs. How's that for scary?
    Hm, nice, hadn't encountered that one. Still, the reactor is of a very safe self-regulating design, so it should be impossible to overheat it. (And hey, it's lasted since the 60s without them blowing it up.)
  • oldtimer (unregistered) in reply to beginend
    beginend:
    sorry for playing dumb... but besides the horrible naming and the lack of commenting, does anything speak against declaring your variables in one place, at the top? what makes that bad style per se?

    Creating variables only at one scope is a bad practice as someone mentioned in a later post, but for all we know there were other variables with more limited scope. Lack of documentation is a real WTF, unless they were actually documented where they were used, but that seems unlikely.

    A long time ago in a far away life I actually was forced to declare all my variables up front like this. It was a compiler few know anything about and I ran into a bug in that compiler. The workaround required that I declare all my variables up front. Anyone who later read my code would be justified in calling it a WTF.

    Captcha appellatio: oral sex with an apple

  • (cs)

    Where is splinex1 through splinex4?

  • QJo (unregistered) in reply to oldtimer
    oldtimer:
    beginend:
    sorry for playing dumb... but besides the horrible naming and the lack of commenting, does anything speak against declaring your variables in one place, at the top? what makes that bad style per se?

    Creating variables only at one scope is a bad practice as someone mentioned in a later post, but for all we know there were other variables with more limited scope. Lack of documentation is a real WTF, unless they were actually documented where they were used, but that seems unlikely.

    A long time ago in a far away life I actually was forced to declare all my variables up front like this. It was a compiler few know anything about and I ran into a bug in that compiler. The workaround required that I declare all my variables up front. Anyone who later read my code would be justified in calling it a WTF.

    Captcha appellatio: oral sex with an apple

    Well they shouldn't, because you should have declared your reasons for doing so in a comment ... if you hadn't done that they would have been so justified.

  • (cs) in reply to QJo
    QJo:
    oldtimer:
    beginend:
    sorry for playing dumb... but besides the horrible naming and the lack of commenting, does anything speak against declaring your variables in one place, at the top? what makes that bad style per se?

    Creating variables only at one scope is a bad practice as someone mentioned in a later post, but for all we know there were other variables with more limited scope. Lack of documentation is a real WTF, unless they were actually documented where they were used, but that seems unlikely.

    A long time ago in a far away life I actually was forced to declare all my variables up front like this. It was a compiler few know anything about and I ran into a bug in that compiler. The workaround required that I declare all my variables up front. Anyone who later read my code would be justified in calling it a WTF.

    Captcha appellatio: oral sex with an apple

    Well they shouldn't, because you should have declared your reasons for doing so in a comment ... if you hadn't done that they would have been so justified.

    No, they wouldn't have been justified even with comments lacking... All they would have is an inaccurate assumption.

  • oh THAT Brian! (unregistered) in reply to pel

    It's over there - next to your APL manual.

  • Sock Puppet #5 (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward:
    some guy:
    TFA:
    Now, what the $#@~! are they?!

    ints.

    PLEASE MAKE IT A FEATURED COMMENT!

    I'm pretty sure they don't do featured comments anymore.

  • Sock Puppet #5 (unregistered) in reply to trtrwtf
    trtrwtf:
    frits:
    blakeyrat:
    It helps to remember everybody here is a troll.
    This is the most sensible thing I've read yet on this site. Not that there's a lot of competition on that front...
    I'd also like to point out that it's amazing that the university vs. non-university flame war has yet to brake out.
  • (cs) in reply to Sock Puppet #5
    Sock Puppet #5:
    Anonymous Coward:
    some guy:
    TFA:
    Now, what the $#@~! are they?!

    ints.

    PLEASE MAKE IT A FEATURED COMMENT!

    I'm pretty sure they don't do featured comments anymore.
    No, they do, there's just been nothing worth "featuring".

  • Mikey (unregistered)

    Can't you read? They're clearly marked as x and y locations of pumps and valves!

  • Sock Puppet #5 (unregistered) in reply to C-Octothorpe

    [quote user="C-Octothorpe"][quote user="Sock Puppet #5"][quote user="Anonymous Coward"]PLEASE MAKE IT A FEATURED COMMENT![/quote] I'm pretty sure they don't do featured comments anymore.[/quote]No, they do, there's just been nothing worth "featuring".[/quote] Actually, I thought this one was amusing: [quote user=Warren] This code is self-documenting.

    What it documents is the coder's lack of "real world" experience. [/quote] Perhaps the real problem is that they're not reading the comments, which explains how a certain filthy-minded character has been able to dominate recently.

  • Sock Puppet #5 (unregistered) in reply to Sock Puppet #5
    Sock Puppet #5:
    C-Octothorpe:
    Sock Puppet #5:
    Anonymous Coward:
    PLEASE MAKE IT A FEATURED COMMENT!
    I'm pretty sure they don't do featured comments anymore.
    No, they do, there's just been nothing worth "featuring".
    Actually, I thought this one was amusing:
    Warren:
    This code is self-documenting.

    What it documents is the coder's lack of "real world" experience.

    Perhaps the real problem is that they're not reading the comments, which explains how a certain filthy-minded character has been able to dominate recently.
    Crap, I meant to hit "Preview". That was a hard one to find!
  • (cs) in reply to Sock Puppet #5
    Sock Puppet #5:
    Perhaps the real problem is that they're not reading the comments, which explains how a certain filthy-minded character has been able to dominate recently.
    My guess is that they're skimming the comments, even doing word searches to narrow it down. But in any case, I've noticed that certain filthy-minded individual's comments being purged on a regular basis. In fact, I think twice in yesterdays article.

    As far as "featuring" comments goes, a pattern I usually see is that very rarely do any comments past the first page ever get featured. My guess is the author gets busy or loses interest due to zunesis or retarded flame wars.

  • (cs)

    The Fortran code for nuclear reactor simulation I came across looked like this. You had to guess which ascii letter was used to transliterate the symbols used in the original equation. Even though it was coded to compile using fortran 95, it seems like the associate professor made it using only fortran 77 paradigm (notably the DO loop with line marker for CONTINUE, instead of using just END DO).

  • Trying desperately to be clever and failing (unregistered) in reply to C-Octothorpe
    C-Octothorpe:
    Sock Puppet #5:
    Anonymous Coward:
    some guy:
    TFA:
    Now, what the $#@~! are they?!

    ints.

    PLEASE MAKE IT A FEATURED COMMENT!

    I'm pretty sure they don't do featured comments anymore.
    No, they do, there's just been nothing worth "featuring".

    Please feature this comment.

  • (cs) in reply to swim
    swim:
    You're not allowed to use Java for a nuclear reactor. It's in the license.
    "not designed or intended for use in the design, construction, operation or maintenance of any nuclear facility."

    Seriously, I'm not making that up.

    No, no you're not making it up. TRWTF is that the Java lawyers felt the need to restrict the usage of the language in nuclear reactors -- it's like they knew the quality of their users, and that it wasn't good.

  • (cs) in reply to Some damn Yank
    Some damn Yank:
    Sam:
    Sock Puppet #5:
    Why would they have a nuclear reactor at a University? Did you read the article?
    Research reactors exist.
    The public would be alarmed at the number of research reactors in the middle of major metropolitan areas. Georgia Tech in Atlanta, to name one. No need to steal the fuel for your dirty bomb, just park the truck bomb in the right spot... Meanwhile, the TSA fondles 6 year old girls in the name of fighting terrorism.

    The University of California had one, but the city of Berkeley made them get of rid of it by making the city a "Nuclear Free Zone".

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