• A Disgruntled Former Employee (unregistered)

    ATTENTION EVERYONE Starting three weeks ago, we will no longer have a posting on Tuesday. In accordance with this move, the new name of this site will be thedailyexceptfortuesdaysandweekendsandjewishholidayswtf.com.

    Please update your bookmarks accordingly.

  • Anonymous (unregistered)

    This is really dirty - I mean swimming around in its own filth dirty, almost like the pigeon of the in-house website account database world. In fact, I think this must be the single most peristeronic in-house website account database I've ever encountered. I'd go so far as to say this in-house website account database is fucking peristeronic as shit.

  • DtB (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    This is really dirty - I mean swimming around in its own filth dirty, almost like the pigeon of the in-house website account database world. In fact, I think this must be the single most peristeronic in-house website account database I've ever encountered. I'd go so far as to say this in-house website account database is fucking peristeronic as shit.

    OMG a data point!

  • boog (unregistered) in reply to A Contractor myself
    A Contractor myself:
    Justice:
    A Contractor:
    People, what part of "Do not feed" did you not understand? For the first two posts, it could have been just a conceited human. After that it became obvious.
    I was thinking "troll?", then I reminded myself of all the contractors I've met who sincerely believe the same crap he keeps spouting, and figured it could just as easily be any of them posting.

    Suddenly, "troll?" turned into "punching bag!"

  • boog (unregistered) in reply to A Disgruntled Former Employee
    A Disgruntled Former Employee:
    ATTENTION EVERYONE Starting three weeks ago, we will no longer have a posting on Tuesday. In accordance with this move, the new name of this site will be thedailyexceptfortuesdaysandweekendsandjewishholidayswtf.com.

    Please update your bookmarks accordingly.

    Huh? Not including today, there have been Tuesday posts all of the last 3 Tuesdays. But they did miss a Monday last week, and a Thursday 2 weeks before.

    Maybe the new site should be thedailyexceptfortuesdaysorsometimesmondaysorsometimesthursdaysbutdefinitelynotweekendsorholidaysjewishorotherwisewtf.com.

  • x86 (unregistered) in reply to DtB
    DtB:
    Anonymous:
    This is really dirty - I mean swimming around in its own filth dirty, almost like the pigeon of the in-house website account database world. In fact, I think this must be the single most peristeronic in-house website account database I've ever encountered. I'd go so far as to say this in-house website account database is fucking peristeronic as shit.
    OMG a data point!
    Quoted for truth (and increased data point value).
  • (cs)

    My experience with contractors is they sell concepts like "Enterprise Platform" and "Database Independence" to uninformed management then shit all over any good coding practices by using every possible buzz technology (XML for huge amounts of internal data, C# for a performance oriented application, app centric data processing). When it catches up to them that the 500 file beast they wrote performs worse than a ms access database they leave and its left to in house devs to redo the work. "It is a set operation, I did 10 inserts in the same begin/end block!".

  • (cs) in reply to A Disgruntled Former Employee
    A Disgruntled Former Employee:
    ATTENTION EVERYONE Starting three weeks ago, we will no longer have a posting on Tuesday. In accordance with this move, the new name of this site will be thedailyexceptfortuesdaysandweekendsandjewishholidayswtf.com.

    Please update your bookmarks accordingly.

    Jewish Holidays that fell midweek this year were 9-10 September, 23-24 September and 30 September-1 October, and thus do not coincide with the days with no posts.

    Alex isn't Jewish anyway (I assume, name sounds more Greek) so no particular reason for him not to post on those days.

  • (cs)

    Those who are desperate to have something to comment on when there are no new articles should register, and then you can come and comment on The Sidebar WTF.

  • non-believer (unregistered)

    Confusing story.

    He commented out the dump but didn't even see the password section.

    Then how do the passwords no longer work ?

  • (cs) in reply to Cbuttius

    90% of everything is crap.

    And that includes these comments. I hope that mine falls in the non-crap 10%.

    The current-day XKCD references are fucking "win" as shit, though; those definitely made it into the non-crap 10%.

  • only me (unregistered) in reply to Steve H
    Steve H:
    NMe:
    ...and you think you're the rule here? Or maybe the exception? :P

    All contractors claim to be the exception, whilst they're invariably hopeless would-be developers that think they're great because they never had to live with their own shitty code - that's the rule for you right there.

    Check out the Wikipedia entry for the Dunning–Kruger effect. "The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which an unskilled person makes poor decisions and reaches erroneous conclusions, but their incompetence denies them the metacognitive ability to realize their mistakes.[1] The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average, much higher than it actually is, while the highly skilled underrate their abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority. This leads to the situation in which less competent people rate their own ability higher than more competent people. It also explains why actual competence may weaken self-confidence: because competent individuals falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding." And no I will not put a link because half the time this site rejects comments with links as spam.

  • swedish tard (unregistered) in reply to A Contractor
    A Contractor:
    swedish tard:
    A Contractor:
    swedish tard:
    A Contractor:
    The Perl script had started out as a quick hack by an in-house developer

    You see, the overwhelming attitude of this site is that all contractors are worthless and damaging. As a contractor myself, I have to say that my observation is that 9 times out of 10 "company employees" are the real WTF and are the incompetent ones who never produce anything and are the reason we have to be hired in the first place. I am not now nor ever will be content to milk any company until retirement. I would be ashamed of myself.

    In my experience its just 9 out of 10 devs, no matter contractor or inhouse, that is the real wtf.

    Both a mixed bag: agreed. However, 9/10 contractors are diligent, skilled, and worth their pay, whereas 1/10 (I'm being very generous) company employees are worth their salt. Of course I realize the dangers of generalization, so I will amend this. My statement applied to the programming level. Low-management and middle management are even lower in terms of quality, but as you approach the level of CEO (and others that have direct control of the success of the company) quality increases. In fact, 99% of companies that have been in business for 5 years or more will have a diligent, skilled, and competent CEO.

    Amended again: this rule only applies to companies whose customers are made up of less than 10% by federal, state, and local governments. Furthermore, a contractor for any government agency is 10 times the bottom-feeder of a company programmer and I have yet to meet one that I would trust to replace a coffee filter.

    Nah. Its really that the majority of anything cant be "good". Be it developers, singers or what the hell else. If the majority has that skill level, it's avarage, not good. So, to a good dev, the majority of devs you come in contact with are bad compared to yourself. That is, if you can correctly tell your own skill, which most people cant. :)

    And I find it annoying when other devs are surprised by me reading books on programming on my spare time. Or sneaking in on classes in the university just because they seem interresting. If they dont want to improve thei skills, or dont enjoy programming... Please, for the love of boobies, switch profession so My paycheck gets even better. ;)

    What part of "diligent, skilled, and worth their pay" don't you understand? Many company employees are far more concerned with where to put the curly bracket and how much whitespace and comments there are than 1) what their users want and need, and 2) whether the software actually meets their wants and needs.

    Moreover, I challenge your statement 'the majority of anything cant be "good".' Most doctors are "good" doctors. This is because of rigorous training and licensing. "Bad" doctors either don't make it through school or have their license revoked. This, incidentally, is the definition of professionalism. Most company programmers are NOT professionals despite being in a career where it is expected.

    I understand "diligent, skilled and worth their pay" quite fine. It's just that two of the three words meaning depend greatly on in relation to what you weigh them, so I reckon my bullshit filter (developed due to way too much contact with management) kicked in.

    And most doctors are avarage. The good ones are fewer. Sure, doctors needs to learn lots of crap during their studies. That doesnt change that most doctors are avarage doctors. Hell, there are even plenty of doctors that suck so hard that I'd rather have a bloody nurse than them.

    Read up on normal distribution btw.

  • boog (unregistered) in reply to Shoruke
    Shoruke:
    90% of everything is crap.

    And that includes these comments. I hope that mine falls in the non-crap 10%.

    Statistically speaking, wouldn't that mean 90% of your comment is crap?

  • Alanis Morissette (unregistered) in reply to boog
    boog:
    A Contractor myself:
    Justice:
    A Contractor:
    People, what part of "Do not feed" did you not understand? For the first two posts, it could have been just a conceited human. After that it became obvious.
    I was thinking "troll?", then I reminded myself of all the contractors I've met who sincerely believe the same crap he keeps spouting, and figured it could just as easily be any of them posting.

    Suddenly, "troll?" turned into "punching bag!"

    "Do not feed the punching bag"? Man, isn't that ironic?

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Shoruke
    Shoruke:
    90% of everything is crap.

    And that includes these comments. I hope that mine falls in the non-crap 10%.

    The current-day XKCD references are fucking "win" as shit, though; those definitely made it into the non-crap 10%.

    Damn you. TVTropes just ate my entire work day. Thankfully, I'm a highly paid consultant, and wasn't planning on doing anything productive anyway.

  • ÃÆâ€â„ (unregistered)

    i can haz new wtf?

  • Ceiling Cat (unregistered) in reply to ÃÆâ€â„
    ÃÆâ€â„:
    i can haz new wtf?
    NO. LOL.
  • Bert Glanstron (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    Shoruke:
    90% of everything is crap.

    And that includes these comments. I hope that mine falls in the non-crap 10%.

    The current-day XKCD references are fucking "win" as shit, though; those definitely made it into the non-crap 10%.

    Damn you. TVTropes just ate my entire work day. Thankfully, I'm a highly paid consultant, and wasn't planning on doing anything productive anyway.

    You are an idiot and should be banned from your client's modem.

  • Herby (unregistered) in reply to Shoruke
    Shoruke:
    90% of everything is crap.

    And that includes these comments. I hope that mine falls in the non-crap 10%.

    The problem is that the "crap" you speak of is the fertilizer for the next generation, which indicates why theDailyWTF is so popular!

  • RBoy (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    I'd go so far as to say this in-house website account database is fucking p...c as shit.

    So, do you do every stupid thing fucking xkcd tells you to do?

  • Derp (unregistered) in reply to RBoy
    RBoy:
    Anonymous:
    I'd go so far as to say this in-house website account database is fucking p...c as shit.

    So, do you do every stupid thing fucking xkcd tells you to do?

    Surely you mean "stupid as shit thing fucking xkcd tells you to do?"?

    CAPTCHA: Conventio. An italian convention.

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to RBoy
    RBoy:
    Anonymous:
    This is really dirty - I mean swimming around in its own filth dirty, almost like the pigeon of the in-house website account database world. In fact, I think this must be the single most peristeronic in-house website account database I've ever encountered. I'd go so far as to say this in-house website account database is fucking peristeronic as shit.

    So, do you do every stupid thing fucking xkcd tells you to do?

    Sorry but do I know you? You seem to have your wires crossed, I don't even watch xxx and I certainly don't do what it tells me to else I'd spent the whole day slapping women in the face with my dick. I recommend you take your mind out the gutter and re-read my comment which merely highlighted that this code is so filthy it is reminiscent of the pigeon, a bird that is renouned for its unclean living conditions. As such, I would argue that this in-house website account database is fucking peristeronic as shit.

    Not everything is this world is about slapping women in the face with your dick you porn-obsessed little weirdo. But don't worry, once you hit 16 and start dating for real you'll realise that love really isn't at all like your favourite porn.

  • modo (unregistered) in reply to anon
    anon:
    every time I have to work with in-house 'developers' (and I use the term developer VERY loosely), I get the sudden urge to bash my head against a wall repeatedly.

    Are you sure those in-house developers wrote the code? In many cases they're just the ones who have to maintain the code after the consultant bailed out. Strangely enough, management assumes that writing something new is much harder than maintenance (while it's actually the other way around), so consultants get the sweet clean-slate jobs (and still fail), and the in-house devs are made to feel incompetent.

  • LB (unregistered) in reply to Henning Makholm
    Henning Makholm:
    A Contractor:
    As a contractor myself, I have to say that my observation is that 9 times out of 10 "company employees" are the real WTF
    By nature, however, your observations overrepresent companies whose management and/or in-house staff are particularly inept; such companies are more likely to need to bring in contractors repeatedly.
    It's not even just those whose developers are inept. It may be companies (or departments) who don't have developers in the first place. They'll have some in-house produced programs (or databases, or websites) that were written by a marketing guy or a billing analyst, or a data entry clerk who read an article on some website about how to work with a particular scripting language or something, and who then decides they can put together something good enough to work. The company allows it because they don't have anyone else to do it, and they end up with an unprofessional hack.

    Later, if they get a major project that's more obviously beyond the scope of someone who isn't a developer, then they'll hire consultants to take care of it. The consultants come in, see the hack that the data entry clerk put together, and decide that full time employees are bad developers, when the truth is that if the company had full time developers they wouldn't have needed to hire the consultants.

  • MIR (unregistered)

    83fcb0032cfb59c0327401d4fab13ea7 [Not Found] afc7090be5e7b01296850e5436a88872 MD5 : joeb b385c5b6899594b3aa220f34e493ab39 MD5 : alexp

    (from http://www.md5decrypter.co.uk/ )

  • (cs) in reply to non-believer
    non-believer:
    Confusing story.

    He commented out the dump but didn't even see the password section.

    Then how do the passwords no longer work ?

    The program was being dumped to standard error. However, that dump stopped after it dumped the line that said 'sub BEGIN'.

    After the program finished, it ran Data::Dumper on the passwords, also going to standard error - the same output file. There had to be a closing curly somewhere after that, but it wasn't mentioned in the post.

    The thing I find confusing is, how did the guy see the passwords in the file, after they were wiped out by the first time someone tried running the script? I have to assume Steve made a backup, and all references to the backup file were left out.

    Also, where's the reports of Internal Server Errors every time the script was run while someone else was already running it? Or was $TMPFILE really a temporary file, that wasn't moved onto the existing script until it had the final curly and necessary permissions tweaked?

  • (cs) in reply to Steve H
    Steve H:
    NMe:
    ...and you think you're the rule here? Or maybe the exception? :P

    All contractors claim to be the exception, whilst they're invariably hopeless would-be developers that think they're great because they never had to live with their own shitty code - that's the rule for you right there.

    Not all contractors claim to be the exception, and not all of them escape their own code. One manager I had encountered an epiphany moment when we managed to get the original contractor back in to service his code, and found that said contractor was worse at maintaining his code than we were, even though we gave him both his original code and the version with our edits. His real moment of truth came, however, after he then allowed me to rewrite from scratch, and I whipped out something that worked and was stable in under a day. (Of course, that was with minimal functionality - I was smart enough by then to not do a quick hack that would live in infamy for eons. There were key components that he was desperately wanting that it did not even pretend to handle.)

    I've known a number of contractors who were brought in as staff augmentation, because of budget bucket issues. Some of them were 90% programmers, but others were pretty good: they had to live with their code, so they learned what didn't work, and they took the time to make it decent.

  • Ted (unregistered) in reply to A Contractor

    Wow. Hate women much?

  • eric bloedow (unregistered)

    that comment about "use pretty pictures" reminded me of this Dilbert comic: http://dilbert.com/strip/2000-02-27

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