The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2013-05-13 Reply Admin

Ah, internationalization. In my environment (Belgium), the end-user can have his or her system installed in English, Dutch, French or German. Fortunately I don't catch errors by a string comparison -.-

English-speaking world companies tend to forget indeed that there are others 'out there'. Other cultures than "en-US" for one, something Microsoft Excel hasn't learned yet for example. If I automate spreadsheet creation through programming code, I have to force the thread into "en-US" because "nl-BE, fr-BE or de-BE" result in errors (that don't give you a clue what the problem is...).

When companies do figure out there are other languages, they start using this terrible geo-location, so that I get Google and other websites in the language they suppose I use based on my IP address. Even if unwanted by most ITers, there's something to say about that in monolingual countries. As soon as you live in a multilingual country, it's more often the wrong language than the right one.

Well, at least we got past the stage where games had ASWD static predefined, which sucked for those using AZERTY (there's a French one and a Belgian one) keyboard layouts - try to play Doom with QSDZ on your QWERTY (or QWERTZ), I dare you.

/rant

Captcha: it's suscipity that there's so few attention to internationalization when programming

2013-05-13 Reply Admin

blob:
Frist! Really, finally?

I think you mean, "Première ! Vraiment, enfin ?"

Or maybe "Permiere". Or something.

2013-05-13 Reply Admin

Chuck Ritter:
PlanB:
I have to admit: Ididn't test it.
Will testing for the output beginning with "ls:" do the trick?

Maybe it will; maybe not. What would work, however, is to do something that reads the machine-readable output from ls. You see, there is this thing called a 'return code' which will be 0 for most command when all goes well. When ls encounters this error, it returns 2. SSH is then kind enough to pass this value back to you by returning the same code.

Well yes, but is that "2" in English or in French?

chubertdev · 2013-05-13 Reply Admin

is the "2" uppercase or lowercase?

2013-05-13 Reply Admin

faoileag:
Honestly, I never figured out the reason for low-level commands like "ls" to be multilingual. Those who regularly work on the console usually have a decent enough command of English, and those who don't shouldn't perhaps work on the console.

Linux Quebecois:

Translation table:

cat -> chat man -> homme arch -> vouter gawk -> regardfixe ram -> battre

Etc.

2013-05-13 Reply Admin

Zappes:
The real WTF is french.

Bloody foreigners....can't go anywhere in the world without meeting any....

2013-05-13 Reply Admin

faoileag:
anonymous_coder():
faoileag:
Honestly, I never figured out the reason for low-level commands like "ls" to be multilingual. Those who regularly work on the console usually have a decent enough command of English, and those who don't shouldn't perhaps work on the console.

Try telling that to the Quebec government - that'll get you mired in bureaucratic hell for a good long time...
They are not really that much a stickler for french, are they? "Sorry, we can't use that OS because it doesn't speak french"?? I shudder at the thought...

"Barbara Manatee....<snip>....and you can't come because you don't speak French"

2013-05-13 Reply Admin

fjf:
Kasper:
Like the person in a shop who needed my phone number to call me, when a particular shipment arrived, then told me: "When it is here, you will become a phone".
Well known false friend in German ("bekommen" = "to get"). "Waiter, I'd like to become a steak please!"
Authorities aren't that great at dealing with the realities though, often they will refuse to speak anything but one of the official languages, regardless of the fact that they'd cover a larger fraction of the population by also communicating in English (and ditching two of the official languages, if five languages is somehow too much).
They probably can't ditch some official languages legally. And partly (not always) I can understand their unwillingness to add a non-official language, if official documents are involved. Mistranslations (or non-exact translations) in legal documents can cause all sorts of trouble. So unless the government starts writing the laws in English too, this won't happen.

Ach Ja! Die falsche Freunde - Ich möchte etwas Gift....(I would like some gifts....Nooooooo)

2013-05-13 Reply Admin

Kiliko:
You are right! I think we should all use the most spoken language in the world by far! It's the best for everyone.
So now everyone forgets their silly language and speak Chinese!

Seriously, I have seen many chauvinists, but never something so arrogant (and wrong) than English-speaking persons on this subject...

If we want to speak a universal language (Better late than never), we should really avoid ALL natural languages (French, Chinese, English...) beceause they ALL have a stupid grammar with a lot of exceptions. Every new regular language have a grammar more logical, simple and easy to learn.

And most important: They are neutral for everyone. Nearly nobody would want to speak the language of another country, because it would sound like being invaded by them and the sacrifice of a vast part of their culture.

Hey, I don't mind feeding the trolls.

RE Chinese: (a) There is not a single "Chinese" language. People in China speak a variety of languages, including Han, Mandarin, Cantonese, etc. But in any case, (b) Even if it is true that there are more people who speak "Chinese" than English -- which probably depends on your definitions of fluency these days -- English is spoken all over the world, while Chinese is mostly spoken in China.

RE a synthetic language: So rather than make things easy for 30% of the people and hard for 70% of the people, we should make it hard for 100% of the people to "be fair". That makes sense.

(In my town they used to have rest rooms in the park. Then the state came along and said that they were not allowed to have public restrooms that were not usable by people with wheelchairs. The town couldn't afford to build new restrooms, so they had to padlock the doors of the existing restrooms. Because 1% of the people couldn't use them, the other 99% must not be allowed to use them.)

I'd love to see us all learn to speak a language with a simple, consistent grammar. But getting a new language off the ground is a huge challenge. You have a classic inertia problem: What's the point of learning a language unless there are many other people out there who speak and write it? But how will you get many people speaking and writing it, if no one wants to be among the first? It makes a lot of sense to say, "If I learn English I can communicate with the billion or so people who already know it." Not so much to say, "If I learn Esperanto I can communicate with the million or two people who already know it."

2013-05-13 Reply Admin

faoileag:
anonymous_coder():
faoileag:
Honestly, I never figured out the reason for low-level commands like "ls" to be multilingual. Those who regularly work on the console usually have a decent enough command of English, and those who don't shouldn't perhaps work on the console.

Try telling that to the Quebec government - that'll get you mired in bureaucratic hell for a good long time...
They are not really that much a stickler for french, are they? "Sorry, we can't use that OS because it doesn't speak french"?? I shudder at the thought...

Yeah, I can't imagine them doing something crazy like that. Why, that would be like telling an Italian restaurant that they can't use the word "pasta"! http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/01/quebec-language-police-ban-pasta

2013-05-13 Reply Admin

PlanB:
Steve The Cynic:
PlanB:
I have to admit: Ididn't test it.
Will testing for the output beginning with "ls:" do the trick?

Not on the day when someone creates a directory "BlobConfig.config" in the expected place (in place of the file). Then ls will list the contents, and might (if the directory has no visible files/subdirectories) not output anything at all...

That would seem like someone is deliberatly messing up the system. If you want to break it, there is always a way. (e.g. by creating an empty file)

if we really, really insist on using 'ls'

result = remoteCon.sendCmd("ls -1d %BlobProfileDirectory%/BlobConfig.Config");
 
if (result.contains(":"))
 {
 
String fileContents = "smb://GlobalShared/UniversalBlobConfig.config";
 remoteCon.putFile("BlobConfig.Config", fileContents, FileType.Link)
 
}
 else
 {
 
// no-op! File exists!
 
}

or we could instead use something that was meant ofr the purpose

$(test -e ED)
#if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
# we don't have the file or errored
#fi

AFAIK, number return codes are not lingually challenged...

2013-05-13 Reply Admin

Lorne Kates:
Peter:
asdf:
Lorne please never write an article again. Thanks
Lorne, I enjoyed the entertainingly different style of writing in this article. Thanks (but please don't do it too often!).
Ladies and gentlemen: feedback from the Internet.
(Thanks and don't worry)

yeah, lucky that wasn't a setup or something....

2013-05-13 Reply Admin

LT:
PlanB:
Steve The Cynic:
PlanB:
I have to admit: Ididn't test it.
Will testing for the output beginning with "ls:" do the trick?

Not on the day when someone creates a directory "BlobConfig.config" in the expected place (in place of the file). Then ls will list the contents, and might (if the directory has no visible files/subdirectories) not output anything at all...

That would seem like someone is deliberatly messing up the system. If you want to break it, there is always a way. (e.g. by creating an empty file)
if we really, really insist on using 'ls'
result = remoteCon.sendCmd("ls -1d %BlobProfileDirectory%/BlobConfig.Config");
 
if (result.contains(":"))
 {
 
String fileContents = "smb://GlobalShared/UniversalBlobConfig.config";
 remoteCon.putFile("BlobConfig.Config", fileContents, FileType.Link)
 
}
 else
 {
 
// no-op! File exists!
 
}
or we could instead use something that was meant ofr the purpose
$(test -e ED)
#if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
# we don't have the file or errored
#fi
AFAIK, number return codes are not lingually challenged...

Whoops:

test -e <filename>
#if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
# we don't have the file or errored
#fi

2013-05-13 Reply Admin

$(test -e ED) #if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then # we don't have the file or errored #fi

at least there is one sane person.

or more concise:

test -e thefile && echo found. || echo not found.

2013-05-13 Reply Admin

anonymous:
TRWTF are native English speakers that think their language should be the one and only language, just because "our economy is better, we have more nukes and we rulez!"

Compared to the French, who think their language should be the one and only because ... it's French ?

Prepotent a-holes. For most of them, it might come as a surprise that such "worldwide English importance" dates from very recent times (WWII). Before that and for a long time, it was *shudder* ... French.

WRONG, mostly.

Science and Engineering: German Commerce & Finance: English (as from England) Diplomacy: French (It seems that you are more ignorant than the majority of native English speakers.)

Then in 1942-1946 there was a change, they all, for some unknown reason, became: American (often called "English").

It seems that you have a problem. Hate? Jealousy? Ignorance? Or maybe just naturally mean spirited and disagreeable? Probably it's just because you, as you so eloquently put it, are an "a-hole"?

2013-05-13 Reply Admin

inori:
My GMail account still redirects through google.co.jp whenever I log in/out, since I happened to be living in Japan at the time I created it. Fortunately, they don't still give me all my pages in Japanese - way too much work to read.

Google's search pages randomly remember or forget language settings, so they randomly display mostly English or mostly Japanese. However, Google's pages other than search nearly always ignore language settings and nearly always display in Japanese. The IP address outranks cookies that Google's settings page set, as well as outranking the user's IE settings.

inori:
For more language fun, when I lived over there, I bought a computer (with Japanese keyboard layout) and installed the US version of WinXP on it. Since I had the US operating system installed, my computer was happy to assume that the keyboard was using the US layout.

Windows has a combination of hacks onto hacks onto hacks.

When installing US Windows XP, sometimes the installer detects that the keyboard is JP106, in which case all you have to do is install support for Asian languages (because Microsoft doesn't understand how a Japanese keyboard could lay out its punctuation marks unless fonts are present for display of Asian languages), and then set the keyboard layout to Japanese. But other times the installer thinks that the keyboard is US101/102, so you have to change the keyboard driver and reboot before making the other changes. It gets worse. If the keyboard is USB, the installer always detects it as US101/102 and you can't change it to JP106. A Knowledge Base article says to install a PS/2 driver for the USB keyboard but of course that doesn't work.

When installing Japanese Windows XP, the installer always detects the keyboard as US101/102, even in cases where US Windows XP would have detected it correctly. Japanese Windows XP has some other hack so it interprets input as coming from the JP106 layout even when it's using the wrong driver. So the hack on hack works if you really have a Japanese keyboard. But now what happens if you really have a US keyboard? Well of course, Japanese Windows' hack on hack knows that your US101/102 setting means JP106, even when yours really is US101/102.

And then it gets even more worse when you turn on the IME. The hack on hack on hack that lets single byte input of the @ character work might not be enough for the double byte ＠ character; Windows might think it's the double byte ［ character. At random.

2013-05-13 Reply Admin

Ronald:
dkf:
Well, the rest of Canada happens to include Alberta, most of which could be described as being like Texas but way colder.
Funny that BC people talk about "crazy easterners" given that there are maybe 11 non-asian people left in BC.

I was no fan of Trudeau, but I must admit that "Turn the box around" was a pretty reasonable suggestion.

Trudeau said that white South Africans should return to England, regardless of how many generations had passed since their Dutch ancestors invaded Africa. Trudeau should have returned to England too, along with most Quebecois, Albertans, Ontarians, etc. What about the 11 non-Asians in BC; are they native American races or are they whites and blacks whose ancestors came a few generations ago?

2013-05-13 Reply Admin

RonBeck62:
faoileag:
Brent:
ZoomST:
And to think Switzerland has four official languages, and none of them are English!

The perfect reason to use a fifth language that kludges together things from Germanic and Romance ones.
Which would be English ;-)

...

Kio? Mi pensis, ke li aludis al Esperanto.

Iyay on'tday derstandunday! Aryay eaningmay ótay plyïmpay athay Gloä-Axons-quésay Igpay-sn'tay eðay disputedlyünday óstmay ealīday udgeklay òfay iscellaneousmay inguisticlay əmentselay? Owhay urstday ouðay‽

2013-05-14 Reply Admin

anonymous:
If the point is speaking a single, very simple language that most people can learn with little to no trouble, let's start speaking Esperanto!

But it's not "the point".

Nuance, flexibility, extensibility, ability to absorb new words, new concepts, to make new words, common use, and even ambiguity are all some of the things wanted in a language.

A single very simple language is not what is wanted -- or it would have naturally evolved long before this. Heck, we started out with grunts which worked pretty well for awhile :-)

English has, arguably, claim to a top (if not the top) position in many of these.

Nuance, for example:
"Horses sweat, men perspire, women glow". Is an example of nuances of technically the same thing. But there are differences.

But, go ahead, have your very simple language. I suspect that the real world will ignore you.

I trust you program in BASIC or FORTRAN?

2013-05-14 Reply Admin

Norman Diamond:
Ronald:
dkf:
Well, the rest of Canada happens to include Alberta, most of which could be described as being like Texas but way colder.
Funny that BC people talk about "crazy easterners" given that there are maybe 11 non-asian people left in BC.
I was no fan of Trudeau, but I must admit that "Turn the box around" was a pretty reasonable suggestion.
Trudeau said that white South Africans should return to England, regardless of how many generations had passed since their Dutch ancestors invaded Africa. Trudeau should have returned to England too, along with most Quebecois, Albertans, Ontarians, etc. What about the 11 non-Asians in BC; are they native American races or are they whites and blacks whose ancestors came a few generations ago?

Quoting Trudeau on Canadian culture is like quoting Sarah Palin on American foreign policy. It makes for a very entertaining discussion but it's not scoring very high on the convince-o-meter.

The only province that ever subscribed to Trudeau's idiotic vision was Ontario (which led to islamic courts and sikhs being allowed to carry their knives in school). Within 5 years the label "visible minority" will apply to white people in Toronto; vancouver and Calgary are next. And it's not a case of a single large ethnic group like LA or Miami; it's a true mosaic of countless ethnic clusters who share nothing but a passport. There are no such things as Canadian values or Canadian culture. That's the Trudeau legacy.

As for the simplistic "who got here first" logic: maybe we should all pay rent to Adam & Eve (or Lucy for those who went to liberal schools) and be done with it.

2013-05-14 Reply Admin

¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL:
Actually, Japanese has a pretty decent grammar (though it's "backwards" like using an HP calculator), very regular verb conjugation (IIRC only 2 irregular verb forms, plus one class of differently conjugated verbs), and a low phoneme count as well. That low phoneme count, however, becomes a bit of a problem when half your language is import words from Chinese.

Great gammar? I'll take your word for it. However I don't think much of a language that has 3 alphabets. Four if you count roman which is also used, like the others, sometimes all in the same sentence.

2013-05-14 Reply Admin

JimTheJam:
anonymous:
If the point is speaking a single, very simple language that most people can learn with little to no trouble, let's start speaking Esperanto!
But it's not "the point".
Nuance, flexibility, extensibility, ability to absorb new words, new concepts, to make new words, common use, and even ambiguity are all some of the things wanted in a language.

A single very simple language is not what is wanted -- or it would have naturally evolved long before this. Heck, we started out with grunts which worked pretty well for awhile :-)

English has, arguably, claim to a top (if not the top) position in many of these.

Nuance, for example:
"Horses sweat, men perspire, women glow". Is an example of nuances of technically the same thing. But there are differences.

But, go ahead, have your very simple language. I suspect that the real world will ignore you.

I trust you program in BASIC or FORTRAN?

Nuance is a property of meaning, not of syntax. In particular, we would only have to memorize a few formal rules to conjugate verbs and decline objects. This is much unlike natural languages.

If you slew a sheep, how many sheep were slain?

I think you will notice that people typically don't complain about the Latin and Greek fragments of English, which are highly regular, to a nearly synthetic degree. They complain about the French (which is irregular with respect to Latin) and German (which is just plain full of irregularity)

2013-05-14 Reply Admin

Captain Oblivious:
JimTheJam:
anonymous:
If the point is speaking a single, very simple language that most people can learn with little to no trouble, let's start speaking Esperanto!
But it's not "the point".
Nuance, flexibility, extensibility, ability to absorb new words, new concepts, to make new words, common use, and even ambiguity are all some of the things wanted in a language.

A single very simple language is not what is wanted -- or it would have naturally evolved long before this. Heck, we started out with grunts which worked pretty well for awhile :-)

English has, arguably, claim to a top (if not the top) position in many of these.

Nuance, for example:
"Horses sweat, men perspire, women glow". Is an example of nuances of technically the same thing. But there are differences.

But, go ahead, have your very simple language. I suspect that the real world will ignore you.

I trust you program in BASIC or FORTRAN?

Nuance is a property of meaning, not of syntax. In particular, we would only have to memorize a few formal rules to conjugate verbs and decline objects. This is much unlike natural languages.

If you slew a sheep, how many sheep were slain?

I think you will notice that people typically don't complain about the Latin and Greek fragments of English, which are highly regular, to a nearly synthetic degree. They complain about the French (which is irregular with respect to Latin) and German (which is just plain full of irregularity)

#include <stdio.h>
extern int numSheep;
extern *sheep[];

int main()
{
  int count =0;
  while(numSheep--)
  {
    /* TODO:  Clarify "slew" - check google */
    if(isSlain(sheep[numSheep]) count++;
  }
  printf("%d sheep were slain\n", count);
  return 0;
}

2013-05-14 Reply Admin

AE OTJ SKRD :

#include <stdio.h>
#include "sheep_slayer.h"
extern int numSheep;
extern *sheep[];
int main()
{
int count =0;
while(numSheep--)
{
/* TODO:  Clarify "slew" - check google */
if(isSlain(sheep[numSheep]) count++;
}
printf("%d sheep were slain\n", count);
return 0;
}

FTFM

2013-05-14 Reply Admin

Norman Diamond:
Trudeau said that white South Africans should return to England, regardless of how many generations had passed since their Dutch ancestors invaded Africa. Trudeau should have returned to England too, along with most Quebecois, Albertans, Ontarians, etc. What about the 11 non-Asians in BC; are they native American races or are they whites and blacks whose ancestors came a few generations ago?

But, but, but ...

We are all Africans. We all came out of Africa! Africa is homeland for all of homo sapiens. The Dutch merely went back home!

Most "native peoples" took the land they are "native" of away from some earlier "native people". (There are a few exceptions.)

I'm a native North American. (I and my parents and their parents --at least-- were born in North American, how can I not be a native American?) My race is Human. The place my ancestors came from was, so Science tells me, the East Africa Rift Valley.

So if we all go back from where we came from, East Africa will be very crowded!

2013-05-14 Reply Admin

JimTheJam:
Norman Diamond:
Trudeau said that white South Africans should return to England, regardless of how many generations had passed since their Dutch ancestors invaded Africa. Trudeau should have returned to England too, along with most Quebecois, Albertans, Ontarians, etc. What about the 11 non-Asians in BC; are they native American races or are they whites and blacks whose ancestors came a few generations ago?
But, but, but ...
We are all Africans. We all came out of Africa! Africa is homeland for all of homo sapiens. The Dutch merely went back home!

Most "native peoples" took the land they are "native" of away from some earlier "native people". (There are a few exceptions.)

I'm a native North American. (I and my parents and their parents --at least-- were born in North American, how can I not be a native American?) My race is Human. The place my ancestors came from was, so Science tells me, the East Africa Rift Valley.

So if we all go back from where we came from, East Africa will be very crowded!

I come from another Universe....but maybe that's a tad pedantic.

Matt Westwood · 2013-05-14 Reply Admin

chubertdev:
is the "2" uppercase or lowercase?

What you can do is create a loop and output a string for each unit of its cardinality, and detect for more than one instance of "Ici, c'est un cadeau du Monsieur" ... ou n'importe quoi ...

Matt Westwood · 2013-05-14 Reply Admin

JimTheJam:
anonymous:
If the point is speaking a single, very simple language that most people can learn with little to no trouble, let's start speaking Esperanto!
But it's not "the point".
Nuance, flexibility, extensibility, ability to absorb new words, new concepts, to make new words, common use, and even ambiguity are all some of the things wanted in a language.

A single very simple language is not what is wanted -- or it would have naturally evolved long before this. Heck, we started out with grunts which worked pretty well for awhile :-)

English has, arguably, claim to a top (if not the top) position in many of these.

Nuance, for example:
"Horses sweat, men perspire, women glow". Is an example of nuances of technically the same thing. But there are differences.

But, go ahead, have your very simple language. I suspect that the real world will ignore you.

I trust you program in BASIC or FORTRAN?

Esperanto suffers from having a whole bunch of rubbish letters that need more than one keystroke to generate on a keyboard. It's one of the reasons why I never took it seriously as a recreational learning activity as a teen. (Although I understand there is a more recently developed version which does indeed use only the basic 26 letters of the conventional English alphabet.)

Medinoc · 2013-05-14 Reply Admin

jay:
Yeah, I can't imagine them doing something crazy like that. Why, that would be like telling an Italian restaurant that they can't use the word "pasta"! http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/01/quebec-language-police-ban-pasta

steak frites may be a staple of Parisian bistros but, according to Quebec law, biftek is the only acceptable term.

Wow, not only they insist on speaking French, they don't even speak it properly.

2013-05-14 Reply Admin

Why don't you apply to write articles if you are so clever?

2013-05-14 Reply Admin

faoileag:
snoofle:
but don't all OS's (and programming languages for that matter) speak fluent WTF?!
But... I thought that was intentional? For those "apart from..." moments?
Developer: I've developed this great OS. No security holes, as stable as a double-t bar lying on the ground and it's free!

Manager: Great product! I can't find a single flaw! But we can't release it like that. We need a few things that irk some people, so that there will be flame wars and such. Without those controversial features, nobody will talk about it!

I'd cry if this wasn't the literal truth: http://download.microsoft.com/documents/uk/technet/downloads/technetmagazine/WinConUKdesFIN.pdf (Which is on the removal of a feature from Windows - No, not that recent change!)

Quote: The theory was that a popular feature gets support calls and unpopular features don’t.

2013-05-14 Reply Admin

AASGH:
Zappes:
The real WTF is french.
Bloody foreigners....can't go anywhere in the world without meeting any....

Yeah, it seems like every country in the world except the US is run by a bunch of foreigners.

chubertdev · 2013-05-14 Reply Admin

I would just like to add that I love proper nouns and phrases that don't translate well.

It's honestly quite funny to be in a store, hear a sentence in Spanish, and have the phrase "skinny jeans" be in the middle of it.

2013-05-14 Reply Admin

"One should not assume that the machine called "localhost" is in fact the same as the system you're running on."

WTF ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Localhost#Relevant_standards

2013-05-14 Reply Admin

Medinoc:
steak frites may be a staple of Parisian bistros but, according to Quebec law, biftek is the only acceptable term.
Wow, not only they insist on speaking French, they don't even speak it properly.

It's the same as Americans insisting on speaking English, but not speaking it properly.

2013-05-15 Reply Admin

It's not REST just because you're accepting a POST request, especially one like this that has no relation to the semantics of the POST method!

2013-05-21 Reply Admin

inori:
Jim the Tool:
Yes. This is the real WTF in this scenario. But in the Switzerland situation generally, the real WTF is Google going, "oh, you're in Geneva, that's in Switzerland right? Now what do they speak in Switzerland, ah, German!" And then giving you all the pages in German. (They also do this in various other bi/multi-lingual countries. The fact that my browser says "en, en-us" is apparently less meaningful than that I'm in a "German" (or in other cases, "Dutch" - Belgium) speaking country.
My GMail account still redirects through google.co.jp whenever I log in/out, since I happened to be living in Japan at the time I created it. Fortunately, they don't still give me all my pages in Japanese - way too much work to read.
For more language fun, when I lived over there, I bought a computer (with Japanese keyboard layout) and installed the US version of WinXP on it. Since I had the US operating system installed, my computer was happy to assume that the keyboard was using the US layout. Not a problem for me since I touch type and thus never actually look at the keyboard anyway, but it was rather confusing to anyone else who tried to use my computer and wondered why the punctuation marks they typed didn't match up to the ones printed on the keyboard.

First thing I do whenever I touch another computer (for more than 5 minutes anyway) is swap the keyboard layout to Dvorak so I can touch-type on it. Great fun when I forget to swap to QWERTY before handing it to someone else...

typetypetype .... backspace backspace type type ..... backspace ...type "uh...why is it....???"

2013-05-24 Reply Admin

Oh yeah, the classic "only works with English locale" one.

I once heard of a program that didn't work on Wednesdays.

One of the things the program did was dumping the system date to a file. The program wasn't able to handle non-ASCII characters. Spanish for "wednesday" (wed) is "miércoles" (mié). So the program worked fine every working day of the week, except wednesdays in Spain, when it broke unexplainably. I still can't figure out how the guy using the program figured out that was the problem.

chubertdev · 2013-05-24 Reply Admin

cousteau:
Oh yeah, the classic "only works with English locale" one.
I once heard of a program that didn't work on Wednesdays.

One of the things the program did was dumping the system date to a file. The program wasn't able to handle non-ASCII characters. Spanish for "wednesday" (wed) is "miércoles" (mié). So the program worked fine every working day of the week, except wednesdays in Spain, when it broke unexplainably. I still can't figure out how the guy using the program figured out that was the problem.

probably logged in as the user, which had the localization settings, and stepped through the program with a debugger.

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