• FreeMarketFan (unregistered) in reply to Coward

    TRWTF is that Hanzo stories were slightly better than this. Please, don't post this kind of junk on the front page.

    It's not funny, it didn't happen, you're not a fiction writer. Just post some interesting anecdotes that are somewhat anonymous and be done with it.

    CAPTCHA: transverbero

  • Jeremy (unregistered)

    Is this actually considered acceptable? Has anyone in the history of the world ever tracked down a former dev to ask them questions? And then, on top of that, have the questions not be things like "we can't figure out where the ___ server is located" but rather things like "why did you not use a loop here?"

    If you think it should be a loop, make it a loop, asshole.

  • (cs) in reply to the beholder
    the beholder:
    faoileag:
    the beholder:
    I'm not even complaining about the way Erik Gern spin the story. ... And TRWTF is Sergio. He gets what the code is doing yet feels the need to track down the previous devs...
    And what exactly gives you reason to believe that the way Sergio behaves is anything but Erik spinning the story?

    Simply ask yourself the question: you leave your job at X (volutarily/forced, doesn't matter). Half a year from now, could your former boss at X tell a new recruit where to find you?

    Now, if Sergio had looked up Luis on facebook, checked his status ("getting drunk in Los dos botellas, Toledo") and used that information to find Luis, ok. That would be plausible.

    But a former boss being able to pinpoint his previous employee's favourite watering hole after he had obviously moved to a different town? Ridiculous (unless of course Miguel and Luis are still buddies).

    You misunderstood me. All I based my opinion on is the fact that Sergio goes after the former devs. Unless the story has been imagined from the start we know this must be a fact because it is the pinpoint of the story; if it is fabricated then once it is removed there is nothing left. Sergio may have behaved more kindly or bitchy than TFA shows but in the end just the fact he went through with the idea to track down the former devs is enough to call him TRWTF.

    I agree that the story doesn't do a stellar job when it comes to describing how exactly Sergio did find Luis. It could be via Facebook as you said, or it could be through the yellow pages - I don't care. I can overlook some misinformation as long as it's not central to the story, as in this case.

    That's just it... it probably IS fabricated. The site embellishes stories sometimes to the point of picking some obscure detail to focus on and build the story around instead of just saying what went on with some minor embellishment to make it an easier read (e.g. coming up with a rant from a boss when the submitter just said "Bossman yelled at me for X").

    I have almost no doubt that the entire "Sergio hunts down the former developers" thing is 100% fake and wasn't even mentioned in the original submission. I'm betting the original submission was something like:

    My name is Sergio and I started a new job at a state-run retirement community here in Spain. I come to find out there were three guys here before me working on the code, and all of them left quickly and left me no documentation at all. My first day I looked through the code and found these:

    (code snippets)

    I ended up lasting a few weeks before I couldn't take it anymore and quit, but at least I documented things for the next guy.

  • Done (unregistered)

    That's it, deleting from feed reader. This shit is getting noticeably worse, not better. Which is amazing. I can't remember the last time I read something on this site and didn't end up regretting it.

  • faoileag (unregistered) in reply to the beholder
    the beholder:
    All I based my opinion on is the fact that Sergio goes after the former devs. Unless the story has been imagined from the start we know this must be a fact because it is the pinpoint of the story; if it is fabricated then once it is removed there is nothing left.
    You might be right - I assumed the "Sergio tries to meet the previous developers" part was made up, but taking a closer look at the Java code in the first part makes me actually doubt if that assumption is correct. Rather, I now think the Java parts are made up.
  • the beholder (unregistered) in reply to ANON
    ANON:
    At least only one more to come: http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Last-but-not-Least.aspx
    Argh. I stand corrected. First I thought it could be true that Sergio went after a drunkard called Luis but there's no way the third article is even remotely true. This story is fabricated from the ground-up.

    Sigh If we could ask for refunds I would definitely do it today. Please, please let tomorrow's article be decent Alex.

  • Paula (unregistered)

    I like the international flair to these articles. I think I'll have a go at a bird, or a row with a wanker.

    Yes I stole that from the Simpsons.

  • nllp (unregistered)
    "Only one more to track down.”

    OMFG! Make it stop! Make it stop!

  • Herr Otto Flick (unregistered) in reply to Rodrigo
    Rodrigo:
    Incredibly Dumb Story:
    Hanzo turns to Gertrude and says "That was weird. I just got a call from Casa de Quixote. Apparently the developer there has been trying to track down anyone who has ever worked there.".....

    Stay tuned. I'm sure this will become a future article

    cool, a WTF Crossover

    HANZO SLASH SERGIO! HANZO SLASH SERGIO! HANZO SLASH SERGIO! HANZO SLASH SERGIO! HANZO SLASH SERGIO! HANZO SLASH SERGIO!

  • neminem (unregistered) in reply to Jeremy
    Jeremy:
    Is this actually considered acceptable? Has anyone in the history of the world ever tracked down a former dev to ask them questions? And then, on top of that, have the questions not be things like "we can't figure out where the ___ server is located" but rather things like "why did you not use a loop here?
    Actually I did once, kinda - my first summer job in college was with the IT department at the college I was enrolled in. I was fixing some code I didn't understand that well for some scripts that had been written by a guy who had had the same job a couple years previously, and I came across something that looked like a bug, but I wasn't sure. I asked my boss (an IT department manager, not a student) if he knew, and his response was that I should ask the guy who wrote the script, so I did. Easy enough to track down the person, since we both went to the same school and all had school email addresses, so why not? (His answer was that he didn't remember exactly, but it was probably a bug, so I fixed it.)
  • Anomaly (unregistered)

    I still maintain that the guy in charge of TDWTF is only posting these stories as an entire wtf in and of themself.

    The stories by Erik Gern are always TRWTF.

    The comments section is routinely monitored by members of TDWTF staff.

    The hatred towards Erik's articles is well known.

    Erik's stories are continued to be posted.

    You know what I have a new theory. Erik Gern is the fictional element.

  • Anom nom nom (unregistered) in reply to spike
    spike:
    The real WTF is why I keep coming back.

    Well that's decided, I'm deleting the link.

    CAPTCHA: ratis says it all really/.

    This ^

  • faoileag (unregistered) in reply to Anomaly
    Anomaly:
    I still maintain that the guy in charge of TDWTF is only posting these stories as an entire wtf in and of themself. ... You know what I have a new theory. Erik Gern is the fictional element.
    So you mean THEY created a fictional persona, complete with blog, twitter and wattpad acount, just to test article styles on THEIR audience? How perfidious!
  • (cs)

    TRWTF is Java and its length method that Erik is Alex's nephew.

  • (cs)

    I'm pretty sure it just adds to the WTFery of the site, like how Community Server is garbage and ironically used for the forums. Insane articles just kind of add to the whole "the Site is the Daily WTF, and the stories make you go WTF"

    I'd rather have MFD than this.

  • (cs)

    Bet he finds the last one in an asylum for the criminally insane...

  • Ehnonymouse (unregistered) in reply to ObiWayneKenobi
    ObiWayneKenobi:
    the rest of this "Track down the developers" bullshit is for flavor.

    I would say that bullshit is the flavor.

  • TenshiNo (unregistered) in reply to John
    John:
    Why do people always expect developers to remember their thought process behind every line of code they ever wrote? I barely remember what I did last week.

    I have always remembered a line from a programming book I read way back when:

    "Always put comments in your code, to be nice to the next person who has to look at it. Especially if it's you, three months from now."

    I love this site, but these stories are a bit much.

  • Anomaly (unregistered) in reply to faoileag
    faoileag:
    Anomaly:
    I still maintain that the guy in charge of TDWTF is only posting these stories as an entire wtf in and of themself. ... You know what I have a new theory. Erik Gern is the fictional element.
    So you mean THEY created a fictional persona, complete with blog, twitter and wattpad acount, just to test article styles on THEIR audience? How perfidious!

    They fabricate everything else in their stories its not unreasonable that they could have created fake accounts on those services as well. I mean its trivial to create a a blog or twitter, never heard of wattpad.

    How else could Erik Gern continue to write stories if he wasnt one of the Site Maintainers alter egos.

    The alternative is TRWTF is an always has been Erik. Who against ridicule and angst still submits stories to TDWTF knowing they will be ripped to shreds by the very readers he is trying to impress. That his stories continue to be posted just so he can be Ridiculed, is a WTF in an of itself. BUT if you look at the article and the other writers for TDWTF as a cabal of miscreants laughing at Erik behind the scenes. It all makes sense.

  • (cs)

    http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/

    I bet the staff uses this to generate "Erik Gern" stories.

  • Duke of New York (unregistered)

    At least we don't have some sentimentalist telling us why the company shouldn't have and legally couldn't have fired "Luis."

  • Friedrice The Great (unregistered) in reply to Anomaly
    Anomaly:
    faoileag:
    Anomaly:
    I still maintain that the guy in charge of TDWTF is only posting these stories as an entire wtf in and of themself. ... You know what I have a new theory. Erik Gern is the fictional element.
    So you mean THEY created a fictional persona, complete with blog, twitter and wattpad acount, just to test article styles on THEIR audience? How perfidious!

    They fabricate everything else in their stories its not unreasonable that they could have created fake accounts on those services as well. I mean its trivial to create a a blog or twitter, never heard of wattpad.

    How else could Erik Gern continue to write stories if he wasnt one of the Site Maintainers alter egos.

    The alternative is TRWTF is an always has been Erik. Who against ridicule and angst still submits stories to TDWTF knowing they will be ripped to shreds by the very readers he is trying to impress. That his stories continue to be posted just so he can be Ridiculed, is a WTF in an of itself. BUT if you look at the article and the other writers for TDWTF as a cabal of miscreants laughing at Erik behind the scenes. It all makes sense.

    Who says Erik's trying to impress anyone? I think he's doing it for the attention. After all, that's why everything is done on sites like this, isn't it?

  • Gumpy Gus (unregistered)

    The real irony is that my grandparents are from Spain and that I turned to this WTF as a beak to get away from a module I was trying to understand that had 300 lines of code, copy pasted six times to make six almost identical procedures named "GetDailySummaries" through "Get20QuartersOfSummaries"

    This stuff happens in real life, guys.

  • (cs) in reply to Gumpy Gus
    Gumpy Gus:
    The real irony is that my grandparents are from Spain and that I turned to this WTF as a beak to get away from a module I was trying to understand that had 300 lines of code, copy pasted six times to make six almost identical procedures named "GetDailySummaries" through "Get20QuartersOfSummaries"

    This stuff happens in real life, guys.

    You need a separate summary for each day of the week, except for Sunday, of course!

  • Walking by (unregistered)

    That was pathetic. I don't understand, really. Who is letting Erik Gern still write this kind of shit on the site? Why is this moron still writing here? Does anyone really think his gibberish belong here???

  • (cs)

    So, the real WTF is 2 people drinking 100 euros worth of Spanish beer between them? Fuck no -- the real WTF is drinking beer in Spain at all. Unless it's a good English IPA of course (there are some reasonable exports).

  • (cs) in reply to Matt Westwood
    Matt Westwood:
    So, the real WTF is 2 people drinking 100 euros worth of Spanish beer between them? Fuck no -- the real WTF is drinking beer in Spain at all. Unless it's a good English IPA of course (there are some reasonable exports).

    TRWTF is IPAs. Yes, I want my beer to taste like pine cones soaked in cough syrup.

  • Duke of New York (unregistered)

    stands up hesitantly

    I– I thought the story was OK. Not Nobel prize material of course. Just a thin coating on a bitter pill.

    gets pelted with anime products, sits down

  • Ben (unregistered)

    Sergio sounds like an ass. He wasn't trying to find out how anything worked, he was just pointing out bad coding practises. I really hope this is just a long winded way of printing some code WTFs and the story is in no way based on reality.

  • Reductio Ad Ridiculousum (unregistered) in reply to No idea.
    No idea.:

    I think the problem is that when the stories are embellished enough, we all come out of the woodwork and comment on them a ton (even if it's negative). Perhaps that is what they're trying to achieve.

    It appears to be working. I dropped by, saw all the comments and thought "oh, must be a good one today".

    Anyways, I don't come here for the articles, I come for the comments. From the occasional clever "frist", to what beers taste like bear whiz.

    It's when the comments contain the same, once witty and now played out complaints and memes that I quit coming for awhile.

    So, do svidaniya to the commenters, and yobnis' ti i tvoya loshad' to the articlers.

  • No (unregistered)

    I don't understand the point of making up a story which does nothing but making the submitted code less funy bi buring it below a pile of stupid, pointless paragraphs.

    If you're having a hard time filling the front page, run another coding contest, or something. The submissions and comments will be a thousand times funnier than this was, and you won't be throwing away your money on some writer who couldn't make someone laugh, even if his life depended on it.

    Hell, just copy/past the code as it is submitted. It's sad that a site which I used to enjoy a lot has lowered its quality so much while trying to achieve the opposite.

  • Duke of New York (unregistered) in reply to Reductio Ad Ridiculousum
    Reductio Ad Ridiculousum:
    So, do svidaniya to the commenters, and yobnis' ti i tvoya loshad' to the articlers.
    and a cthulhu fthagan to you
  • (cs) in reply to foobär
    foobär:
    Also why is everybody acting as if the fictional parts of the story were true?
    Because there are no other parts to work with.
  • Dirk (unregistered) in reply to anonymous
    anonymous:
    Is that déjà vu?

    My comment of the first topic:

    anonymous:
    ... If someone wrote something as stupid as this reflection scheme, would anyone reasonably believe that it would be any good getting in contact with the said person? Only two scenarios are possible if you ever get an answer: "Neat, huh?" (in this case, the guy is still as dumb as always) or "I'm really sorry, man! I was totally inexperienced, and thought it was a good idea..." (the guy learned his lession, but the code is crap because it is).
    None of your scenarios are accurate. It was actually - "Sorry, I was drunk at the time..." *shrugs* "Now shutup, I'm trying to drink."

    Yeah, call me a furtune teller now.

    (BTW, the artistic license is making the stories dumb beyond measure. Please, stop ruining otherwise good stories with lame jokes and bloating the site with stuff like this. If you have nothing for today, better not post at all)

  • Dirk (unregistered) in reply to anonymous
    anonymous:
    Is that déjà vu?

    My comment of the first topic:

    anonymous:
    ... If someone wrote something as stupid as this reflection scheme, would anyone reasonably believe that it would be any good getting in contact with the said person? Only two scenarios are possible if you ever get an answer: "Neat, huh?" (in this case, the guy is still as dumb as always) or "I'm really sorry, man! I was totally inexperienced, and thought it was a good idea..." (the guy learned his lession, but the code is crap because it is).

    Yeah, call me a furtune teller now.

    (BTW, the artistic license is making the stories dumb beyond measure. Please, stop ruining otherwise good stories with lame jokes and bloating the site with stuff like this. If you have nothing for today, better not post at all)

    Take two: None of your scenarios are accurate. It was actually - "Sorry, I was drunk at the time..." shrugs "Now shutup, I'm trying to drink."

  • honky tonk (unregistered)

    If I wanted to read a Don Coyote story, I would've looked for a Don Quixote book....

  • milko (unregistered)

    two things:

    1. I always thought the "test" they used for new writers was a bit odd and would attract story tellers, not writers. Turned out I was write (sorry no evidence, just believe me godammit)
    2. Didn't they run a survey not so long ago about how people like the content presneted? I hope the overwhelming "No more Hanzo" that they presumably got didn't result in "oh let's create this Sergio who is totally different instead"
    3. (yes I know, I said 2 things) Or maybe like all good organisations, surveys are sent out to look like you care, not because you actually want to see the results....
  • (cs) in reply to Coward
    Coward:
    So Sergio has replaced Hanzo then?

    Yeah and he has managed to be even worse.

    Why is this Erik Gern crap still published? It's terrible.

  • Hasse de great (unregistered)

    Come on guys, dont be to hard on this website. It is not that easy to cram out a story a day if that is not your daily job. People writing storys on this site are programmers, not writers though some are betters than others.

    I do look at this site almost daily and just now and then I find a grain of gold. That makes it worth still looking.

    One remark: the better the stories, the better the comments. I do agree this is not the best story written here, but most of the comments are worse!

  • TrXtR (unregistered) in reply to Coward

    Sergio is an idiot. Obviously cant read code, refactor and fix. Seems he feels like he is the only developer that has done this.

    The real WTF here is that the guy missed with the beer glass. Should have tried to smack him with it rather than throwing him with it.

    Sergio sounds like a junior. If he walked up to me into a bar, I'd invite him to my car to some see the code. When I find the tyre iron... I'll show him all the code he wants.

  • faoileag (unregistered) in reply to chubertdev
    chubertdev:
    Matt Westwood:
    the real WTF is drinking beer in Spain at all. Unless it's a good English IPA of course (there are some reasonable exports).
    TRWTF is IPAs. Yes, I want my beer to taste like pine cones soaked in cough syrup.
    TRWTF is what is sold as "beer" in some other countries and some of the "lagers" in Britain.

    "Bud Light"? Can I please get the original czech "Budweiser Budvar"?

    "Ice cold" lager? Sure, chilling is the best method to bring out the flavour!

    How did that Hobgoblin ad go? "Afraid you might taste something Lagerboy?"

    CAPTCHA: tation - a more permanent form of temptation and fitting right now.

  • TL;DR (unregistered)

    TL;DR:

    Asking redundant alcoholics to elaborate in detail on their historical incompetency results in violent disagreement.

  • nobulate (unregistered)

    your comments bore me more than this story.

  • (cs) in reply to Hasse de great
    Hasse de great:
    Come on guys, dont be to hard on this website. It is not that easy to cram out a story a day if that is not your daily job.

    Maybe they should change it to The Weekly WTF and then they could just publish good articles.

  • (cs) in reply to Hasse de great
    Hasse de great:
    Come on guys, dont be to hard on this website. It is not that easy to cram out a story a day if that is not your daily job. People writing storys on this site are programmers, not writers though some are betters than others.
    It wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that submissions are down because the people who would be submitting WTFs have seen what an utter dog's breakfast the "editors" here make of them. A death spiral, if you will.
  • Hannes (unregistered)

    So, first Sergio tries to contact some people at their workplace during the week end, now he tracks down some guy in a bar... what's next? Digging up the last developer on an old graveyard, trying to get his answers from a corpse?

  • Norman Diamond (unregistered) in reply to Dirk
    Dirk:
    Take two: None of your scenarios are accurate. It was actually - "Sorry, I was drunk at the time..." *shrugs* "Now shutup, I'm trying to drink."
    Now that hits the nail on the head. You've explained why Erik Gern keeps writing this stuff.
  • Tim Burton (unregistered) in reply to Hannes
    Hannes:
    So, first Sergio tries to contact some people at their workplace during the week end, now he tracks down some guy in a bar... what's next? Digging up the last developer on an old graveyard, trying to get his answers from a corpse?
    Sorry, no, I don't post comments on this site.
  • QJo (unregistered) in reply to chubertdev
    chubertdev:
    Matt Westwood:
    So, the real WTF is 2 people drinking 100 euros worth of Spanish beer between them? Fuck no -- the real WTF is drinking beer in Spain at all. Unless it's a good English IPA of course (there are some reasonable exports).

    TRWTF is IPAs. Yes, I want my beer to taste like pine cones soaked in cough syrup.

    You sure nobody laced your beer with retsina?

  • QJo (unregistered) in reply to Anomaly
    Anomaly:
    I still maintain that the guy in charge of TDWTF is only posting these stories as an entire wtf in and of themself.

    The stories by Erik Gern are always TRWTF.

    The comments section is routinely monitored by members of TDWTF staff.

    The hatred towards Erik's articles is well known.

    Erik's stories are continued to be posted.

    You know what I have a new theory. Erik Gern is the fictional element.

    I maintain that the plethora of uncouth and mannerless contributors to the comments on this site who give consistently negative reviews are just envious because their writing skills are not as great as those who write the articles themselves. If there were genuinely a case for deleting comments, then that is a fair one.

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