The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

Silverhill · 2012-06-07 Reply Admin

aptent:
"Frist" is a shorthand for "I'm a dumbass because that's pretty much the only constructive comment that I can provide related to this article".

Or else it's a standing (if lame) joke.

aptent:
Screw you, octopus

aptent:
You have no fucking clue what you're talking about. Go flip burgers.

Somebody pissed -- no, sombody must have shat -- in your Cheerios this morning, eh aptent?

(cue another stupid response from aptent in 3...2...1...)

2012-06-07 Reply Admin

PiisAWheeL:
Jay:
dutchieman:
1 = 1 10 = 8 + 2 100 = 64 + 32 + 4
... were they just lucky? or is that stuff in fact binary, and not decimal?

Yeah, I wondered about that too. So if they add 1000=Mexico, 1000 = 8+32+64+128+256+512, which has bits in common with both 10 and 100. So:

country=Canada if county and Mexico ... will be true

And they'll probably sit there scratching their heads over this weird bug. Why does it work for 3 "bits" but not for 4? This is when they start writing letters to Microsoft informing them of the bug in the VB6 compiler.
I can think of 2 possibilities (non exhaustive list): 1: It really is true binary. That makes a wtf out of not getting your full potential out of it (since you can count to 7 with 3 bits) 2: They have a very similar storage method and is in fact storing it in the registry as decimal without realizing it, so anding a decimal 100 with a decimal 100 (im assuming the conversation is that it looks like decimal in the code and not binay) should = out right?

The second one is my working theory.

Based on what we've seen so far, I'd say that the data is stored in the registry as a decimal, read in to the app using a registry reading function that returns a String, converted to an integer using a combination of substring functions and poorly indented if statements, and dumped into the Global variable iChkBx, all of which written directly into the listener function of a button, and that function which will read rather like this sentence that you're reading right now. End Ramble.

2012-06-07 Reply Admin

Nagesh:
Nagesh:
Me thinking there maybe two fake Nageshes.
Me too.

I is thinking to agree with both youse

2012-06-07 Reply Admin

Amen to that. Just today I was investigating the "icacls" command to change the ACLs on some files via a batch file. It turns out it won't break the inheritance chain of ACLs, which seems to be how most permissions are passed on through the directory tree. So, to break the chains (without using the GUI), you have to get the old xcacls.vbs that was used on XP. Oh, and it's not supported and not guaranteed to work on Win 7. Great. How do they let a half baked tool like icacls out the door?

2012-06-07 Reply Admin

Anonymous Bob:
Amen to that. Just today I was investigating the "icacls" command to change the ACLs on some files via a batch file. It turns out it won't break the inheritance chain of ACLs, which seems to be how most permissions are passed on through the directory tree. So, to break the chains (without using the GUI), you have to get the old xcacls.vbs that was used on XP. Oh, and it's not supported and not guaranteed to work on Win 7. Great. How do they let a half baked tool like icacls out the door?

Ok, so the Reply doesn't do a quote. There's a Quote button for that. <sigh>

2012-06-07 Reply Admin

Ralph:
dkf:
aptent:
Windows is the best desktop (and server) operating systems availalbe nowadays (I'm not digging into the past, though).
Is this the same Windows which mixes an utterly unpredictable mechanism for quoting arguments to subprocesses and a strong inclination to spaces in filenames?
Yes, but Mac and now Linux encourage spaces in filenames too so they're just as crappy.
Hint: It is supposed to be a file name not a fucking sentence!

I've spent more years than I care to admit working on both Windows and various *nix flavors. I've got to say Windows has generated more WTF moments for me than any of the others.

2012-06-07 Reply Admin

SilentRunner:
J-Po:
Frist?
Real WTF is Visual Basic

Don't you people ever tire of taking digs at Microsoft? You SOBs would be frying eggs at the local diner if it weren't for Microsoft.

And WTF is "frist"? Is that a medal you pin on your ass, J-Po?

I think he meant that VB6 is the WTF. We don't really go by version number anymore but vintage instead or rather the framework behind.

Also Visual Basic is slowly deprecated, MSDN still shows exampls in VB as well as C#, but the latter is by far the language of choice for .net developers.

And "frist" is like "pwned", making joke a folks typing so fast that they hit submit without spell checking themselves, in their haste to be first to post.

It's just a meme, like Nagesh.

2012-06-07 Reply Admin

Nick V.:
SilentRunner:
J-Po:
Frist?
Real WTF is Visual Basic

Don't you people ever tire of taking digs at Microsoft? You SOBs would be frying eggs at the local diner if it weren't for Microsoft.

And WTF is "frist"? Is that a medal you pin on your ass, J-Po?

I think he meant that VB6 is the WTF. We don't really go by version number anymore but vintage instead or rather the framework behind.

Also Visual Basic is slowly deprecated, MSDN still shows exampls in VB as well as C#, but the latter is by far the language of choice for .net developers.

And "frist" is like "pwned", making joke a folks typing so fast that they hit submit without spell checking themselves, in their haste to be first to post.

It's just a meme, like Nagesh.

And I obviously did not spellcheck myself either :)

2012-06-07 Reply Admin

Nagesh:
Nagesh:
Nagesh:
Me thinking there maybe two fake Nageshes.
Me too.
I is thinking to agree with both youse

Me two

2012-06-07 Reply Admin

Sir Twist:
myName:
And why buy it if they were joining the other company, didn't they already have the tools?
No, the other company had VB 6 or VS 6. Doyle's company didn't. The earliest version of VS included in your MSDN subscription has been VS.NET for at least the last 5 years.

VB6 Enterprise Edition is still downloadable from MSDN, even for MSDN subscribers who no longer have an enterprise level subscription.

2012-06-07 Reply Admin

WTFs in manipulation of bits, non-bit values, and inability to tell the difference, is not limited to VB or Windows.

[url made into a non-url because akismet doesn't allow urls] http marc.info/?l=linux-scsi&m=133905180311418&w=2 [/url made into a non-url because akismet doesn't allow urls]

2012-06-07 Reply Admin

dutchieman:
1 = 1 10 = 8 + 2 100 = 64 + 32 + 4
... were they just lucky? or is that stuff in fact binary, and not decimal?

CAPTCHA:vulputate, i.e. what you do after smelling this code

Luck; 1000 & 10 is true, as is 1000 & 100. VB doesn't have binary literals.

Hey, I inherited code from a guy who was trying to use the unix find command and (partly because he never read the fucking manual) did not grasp that its arguments were a logical predicate. All his code was "try shit and see if it sticks."

The worst part is the motherfucker who swears that we never had problems when this guy ran it.

2012-06-07 Reply Admin

Nagesh:
Nagesh:
Nagesh:
Nagesh:
Me thinking there maybe two fake Nageshes.
Me too.
I is thinking to agree with both youse
Me two

Nagesh, please.

2012-06-07 Reply Admin

I don't have an MSDN subscription, but I thought I had read that Visual Studio 6 was pulled due to the Sun Java lawsuit outcome?

Also, why try to buy dozens of copies on eBay? I thought new Microsoft products came with downgrade rights to any previous version - you just have to track down the media on your own.

It's really sad. It would be awesome if MSDN came with access to all past versions of the products it comes with. I've always wondered what it would be like to program for Windows 1.0 using whatever SDK they had available back then - just for fun. It would be a very interesting way to learn how the API has evolved over the years. But the earliest I found on MSDN was Windows 3.1 and Visual C++ 1.52, if I remember right. No idea where one would come up with the older stuff.

I guess another problem is the older stuff came with printed documentation only - and no online documentation. (What with memory being such a limited thing and all that).

2012-06-08 Reply Admin

Sure, I'm tired of taking digs at Microsoft. But, then I run into yet another half baked, incoherent design that was foisted on us as the standard. That gets me all riled up again.

Of course, I eventually find workarounds that let me find a way to accept the poor and incoherent design. However, by then I've already found multiple half baked, incoherent designs that ....

I'd be happy to give up my bitterness if Microsoft could stop finding new ways to earn it.

2012-06-08 Reply Admin

James Johnston:
I don't have an MSDN subscription, but I thought I had read that Visual Studio 6 was pulled due to the Sun Java lawsuit outcome?

I think that's correct. I think that's why VB6 is the only component of the former Visual Studio 6 that can still be downloaded.

James Johnston:
But the earliest I found on MSDN was Windows 3.1 and Visual C++ 1.52, if I remember right.

That matches my recollection, though I'm not going to log in again now to check it. VC++ 1.52 remains available for 16-bit programs, for Windows 3.1 or MS-DOS 7 or whatever. (I think MS-DOS 7 was what you got by booting Windows 98 to real mode. I haven't done it for a while. Hey wait, I still have it installed in a VM somewhere.)

Coyne · 2012-06-08 Reply Admin

It is really depressing to see just how poor some people's understanding of computer programming really is. The "bit logic" in this WTF is so broken as to boggle the mind.

Just as an example, if iChkBx = 1000, then "iChkBx And 100" is true!

So it's clear the authors had no idea what "iChkBx And 100" actually does, and they can't do even elementary testing.

Never has that old saying rung so true:

"If carpenters built houses the way programmers build programs, the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization." - Jerry Weinberg

2012-06-08 Reply Admin

Ralph:
dkf:
aptent:
Windows is the best desktop (and server) operating systems availalbe nowadays (I'm not digging into the past, though).
Is this the same Windows which mixes an utterly unpredictable mechanism for quoting arguments to subprocesses and a strong inclination to spaces in filenames?
Yes, but Mac and now Linux encourage spaces in filenames too so they're just as crappy.
Hint: It is supposed to be a file name not a fucking sentence!

A program or process made for general users is more useful than a program or process made for Computer Programmers.

It's a lot better for the end user to use terms and patterns you've grown up with your whole life (Sentence structure, for example), than it is to go by what's easier to program.

Windows is all about ease of use for the end user, not for the computer scientist. This is why it's so popular to this day, and there is nothing right about criticizing a few issues within batch scripts (Which have easily-accessible workarounds), than it is to troubleshoot why a user can't access a particular folder 50 times a day for a living.

2012-06-08 Reply Admin

Jamie:
It's a lot better for the end user to use terms and patterns you've grown up with your whole life (Sentence structure, for example), than it is to go by what's easier to program.
Windows is all about ease of use for the end user, not for the computer scientist. This is why it's so popular to this day, and there is nothing right about criticizing a few issues within batch scripts (Which have easily-accessible workarounds), than it is to troubleshoot why a user can't access a particular folder 50 times a day for a living.

Bah, it was better when filenames had to be 8 letters. We liked it because it was all we had!

2012-06-08 Reply Admin

No, they would be bitching about some other company (maybe Apple?) and their awful programming suite. But programmers would be around, with or without Microsoft.

2012-06-08 Reply Admin

Ralph:
dkf:
aptent:
Windows is the best desktop (and server) operating systems availalbe nowadays (I'm not digging into the past, though).
Is this the same Windows which mixes an utterly unpredictable mechanism for quoting arguments to subprocesses and a strong inclination to spaces in filenames?
Yes, but Mac and now Linux encourage spaces in filenames too so they're just as crappy.
Hint: It is supposed to be a file name not a fucking sentence!

Oh boy it's you again! Please tell us more about how the web is supposed to be for pure documents only and Javascript is so evil. Don't you just love the new direction it's taking with HTML5?

2012-06-08 Reply Admin

So, being this is a VB6 app, with coding oddities like described, this is no doubt a very large, legacy app, developed in the 90s and still going strong at time of writing. I wonder how many of Doyle's "superior" apps will still be in production after nearly 20 years.

As for running off to various auction sites to get a copy of VB6. What sort of a 2 bit, half backed, amateur organisation is that? Very much sounds to me as if Doyle and crew need a reality check, they ain't that good

2012-06-08 Reply Admin

Personally, I think the project leads were right to stop the enhancements. It's an old project with (almost certainly) no unit testing, and a crappy structure full of unintended action at a distance. The only options are to re-write from scratch or leave it alone. Personally, the wtf for me is any suggestion that you'd want to open this can of worms.

2012-06-08 Reply Admin

Scrummy:
At the risk of sounding redundant, an Agile team would not have had this problem. Regular product review and retrospective would have unearthed that settings driven by bits stored in the registry is wildly untenable.

I don't see why agile would make this more likely. The original team alread knew what was being done, and was OK with it. So a "review and retrospective" would make no difference.

Indeed, the decision to use a hack like this is usually the result of the artificial deadlines created by iterative processes. The assumption is always that a better solution will go in at a later date. But as the hacky method spreads around the codebase, the cost of that refactor just goes up. And it never gets done.

Indeed, this WTF story has real-word agile written all over it.

ObiWayneKenobi · 2012-06-08 Reply Admin

aptent:
You have no fucking clue what you're talking about. Go flip burgers.

Methinks you're one of those VB "developers" that Microsoft caters to and who wouldn't know good software development practices if it bit you on the ass.

Seriously, people like that are a cancer on the development world. They sneak into companies and entrench themselves, railing against good and proven techniques like unit testing (maybe TDD, maybe not), design patterns, using third-party libraries were appropriate versus NIH, using any kind of good software engineering principle that many genius-level developers espouse. They write code like shit, focusing only on how fast they can shlock up some bullshit to con their boss into thinking a feature works when it's buggy as all hell and barely works. They force good developers to leave because they get tired of getting nowhere trying to implement things that should be common sense to any good developer.

Die in a fire. And take the rest of your degenerate VB Mort brethren with you.

2012-06-08 Reply Admin

Mike:
As for running off to various auction sites to get a copy of VB6. What sort of a 2 bit, half baked, amateur organisation is that? Very much sounds to me as if Doyle and crew need a reality check, they ain't that good

QFT. Agreed, as someone already pointed out VB6/VS6 is still available thru MSDN. But even if it wasn't, Visual Studio can convert/upgrade it to VB.Net. Granted, the conversion is not always 100% perfect, but at least that would be a fall-back option if VS6 wasn't available.

I also wonder what kind of amateur group this is, that they don't keep all their old cds?! Come on, IT is known for being pack-rats, in my old job we had hundreds of cd sleeves with Volume License versions of every Msft package back to 1995 or so. And somewhere around here I think I still have Office 4.3 on floppies! ;-)

2012-06-08 Reply Admin

I'd rather deal with tons of XML than some harebrained idea like USING THE FUCKING REGISTRY.

At least with the registry you can do black box testing when documentation is missing. Or if you have the source code, you can search for identifier.

If something is missing from XML spesifications, it is impossible to find out what it is. Either it's well documented, you have the source code and know where to look, or you're screwed.

2012-06-08 Reply Admin

ObiWayneKenobi:
aptent:
You have no fucking clue what you're talking about. Go flip burgers.

Methinks you're one of those VB "developers" that Microsoft caters to and who wouldn't know good software development practices if it bit you on the ass.

Seriously, people like that are a cancer on the development world. They sneak into companies and entrench themselves, railing against good and proven techniques like unit testing (maybe TDD, maybe not), design patterns, using third-party libraries were appropriate versus NIH, using any kind of good software engineering principle that many genius-level developers espouse. They write code like shit, focusing only on how fast they can shlock up some bullshit to con their boss into thinking a feature works when it's buggy as all hell and barely works. They force good developers to leave because they get tired of getting nowhere trying to implement things that should be common sense to any good developer.

Die in a fire. And take the rest of your degenerate VB Mort brethren with you.

It's assholes like you that give decent hard working C# developers a bad name. I am so sick of seeing the flame VB comments. Its not the language that's bad, its the developers themselves. And before you get your panties in a bunch about the language, stop begging for all the things that make VB nice. I dunno, like background compilation, intellisense that works, and while all the C# devs railed about optional param's... they sure are quiet about it now that C# has them.

All the high and mighty C# devs can sit around and jerk each other off telling each other how great their language is, and the VB devs just keep getting the job done. Most of the time the compiled code is identical to whatever garbage the equally bad C# devs produce. Garbage in, garbage out.

Ugh. I hate getting worked up this early in the morning.

2012-06-08 Reply Admin

Doubter:
All the high and mighty C# devs can sit around and jerk each other off telling each other how great their language is, and the VB devs just keep getting the job done. Most of the time the compiled code is identical to whatever garbage the equally bad C# devs produce.

It isn't just about the compiled code. It's also about the readability and maintainability of the source code.

"Getting the job done" is no good if you're only doing half the job.

2012-06-08 Reply Admin

Bartholemew Taps:
Doubter:
All the high and mighty C# devs can sit around and jerk each other off telling each other how great their language is, and the VB devs just keep getting the job done. Most of the time the compiled code is identical to whatever garbage the equally bad C# devs produce.

It isn't just about the compiled code. It's also about the readability and maintainability of the source code.

"Getting the job done" is no good if you're only doing half the job.

Meh, VB devs claim theirs is more readable, C# devs claim theirs is... and PHP devs.. well they will never claim that. I would never want a VB dev to maintain my C# code and vice versa so that argument doesnt hold any water for me.

2012-06-08 Reply Admin

Interesting that modern devs think there is one true religion. I wonder what they would think about an era where you learnt two languages a year. VB vs C# vs PHP vs whatever is so funny.

Have some respect guys. TRWTF is language wars

Nagesh · 2012-06-08 Reply Admin

Remy Porter:
Hey everyone, I just received bad news. Fake Nagesh is dead, he got run over by a dog sled team. Hopefully The Daily WTF will survive this tragedy ...

FakeNagesh = fake Remy Porter.

Nagesh · 2012-06-08 Reply Admin

James Johnston:
I don't have an MSDN subscription, but I thought I had read that Visual Studio 6 was pulled due to the Sun Java lawsuit outcome?
Also, why try to buy dozens of copies on eBay? I thought new Microsoft products came with downgrade rights to any previous version - you just have to track down the media on your own.

It's really sad. It would be awesome if MSDN came with access to all past versions of the products it comes with. I've always wondered what it would be like to program for Windows 1.0 using whatever SDK they had available back then - just for fun. It would be a very interesting way to learn how the API has evolved over the years. But the earliest I found on MSDN was Windows 3.1 and Visual C++ 1.52, if I remember right. No idea where one would come up with the older stuff.

I guess another problem is the older stuff came with printed documentation only - and no online documentation. (What with memory being such a limited thing and all that).

J++ was start of Microsoft and Sun Microsystem trouble. I heard J++ is now banned world-wide and if you have system running in J++, you need to surender it to Oracle who own all legal rights. So microsoft make copy of J++ and sold it as C#. Once free from java yoke, they decided to add more things to c# and making it a complete different language.

ObiWayneKenobi · 2012-06-08 Reply Admin

Doubter:
It's assholes like you that give decent hard working C# developers a bad name. I am so sick of seeing the flame VB comments. Its not the language that's bad, its the developers themselves. And before you get your panties in a bunch about the language, stop begging for all the things that make VB nice. I dunno, like background compilation, intellisense that works, and while all the C# devs railed about optional param's... they sure are quiet about it now that C# has them.
All the high and mighty C# devs can sit around and jerk each other off telling each other how great their language is, and the VB devs just keep getting the job done. Most of the time the compiled code is identical to whatever garbage the equally bad C# devs produce. Garbage in, garbage out.

Ugh. I hate getting worked up this early in the morning.

It's not VB devs, but I see that "who cares about doing things correct? Just sling some code!" mentality far more often in VB guys than C# guys, and VB guys seem to be more likely to not care about things like the SOLID principles, or using an ORM or IoC container or advanced things like that. I don't hate the language, I hate the mentality around the language.

2012-06-08 Reply Admin

Remy Porter:
Hey everyone, I just received bad news. Fake Nagesh is dead, he got run over by a dog sled team. Hopefully The Daily WTF will survive this tragedy ...

dictionary.com:
dog sled noun 1. Also, dog sledge . a sled pulled by dogs, especially one used by Arctic peoples, as the Eskimos.

???

dictionary.com:
sled noun 1. a small vehicle consisting of a platform mounted on runners for use in traveling over snow or ice.

Ain't ice in Hyderabad excepting in mechine at hotel:

[image]

RichP · 2012-06-08 Reply Admin

Tasty:
<snip>
Am I supposed to read the iChkBx And 100 etc. as bit-wise AND? Who reads 100 and doesn't think in decimal?

VB.Net Programmers, that's who!

PiisAWheeL · 2012-06-08 Reply Admin

Nick V.:
Nick V.:
SilentRunner:
J-Po:
Frist?
Real WTF is Visual Basic

Don't you people ever tire of taking digs at Microsoft? You SOBs would be frying eggs at the local diner if it weren't for Microsoft.

And WTF is "frist"? Is that a medal you pin on your ass, J-Po?

I think he meant that VB6 is the WTF. We don't really go by version number anymore but vintage instead or rather the framework behind.

Also Visual Basic is slowly deprecated, MSDN still shows exampls in VB as well as C#, but the latter is by far the language of choice for .net developers.

And "frist" is like "pwned", making joke a folks typing so fast that they hit submit without spell checking themselves, in their haste to be first to post.

It's just a meme, like Nagesh.

And I obviously did not spellcheck myself either :)

Frist started as a typo. Nagesh is not a meme, Nagesh is an idiot. And the same 3 "Hydarabad" photos aren't funny anymore.

2012-06-08 Reply Admin

ObiWayneKenobi:
Doubter:
It's assholes like you that give decent hard working C# developers a bad name. I am so sick of seeing the flame VB comments. Its not the language that's bad, its the developers themselves. And before you get your panties in a bunch about the language, stop begging for all the things that make VB nice. I dunno, like background compilation, intellisense that works, and while all the C# devs railed about optional param's... they sure are quiet about it now that C# has them.
All the high and mighty C# devs can sit around and jerk each other off telling each other how great their language is, and the VB devs just keep getting the job done. Most of the time the compiled code is identical to whatever garbage the equally bad C# devs produce. Garbage in, garbage out.

Ugh. I hate getting worked up this early in the morning.

It's not VB devs, but I see that "who cares about doing things correct? Just sling some code!" mentality far more often in VB guys than C# guys, and VB guys seem to be more likely to not care about things like the SOLID principles, or using an ORM or IoC container or advanced things like that. I don't hate the language, I hate the mentality around the language.

Fine. I can understand that, and for a long time, that probably was the case. BUT, I have also seen a lot of C# devs and uninformed managers have the false sense of security that just because its done in C#, its magically wunderbar, and naturally better than anything else, akin to sliced bread. Doing it right is more than picking a language of the month, its all the "other" stuff thats hard.

Its also easy to slam the VB3 - VB6 era, but lets face it, its the only language of its time (not counting C and its derivatives) that has lasted, for good or bad; Delphi, Paradox, dbase, PowerBuilder and the rest faded away. Without the pervasivness of the product, I doubt Visual Studio would be in the position its in today.

D-Coder · 2012-06-08 Reply Admin

Remy Porter:
Hey everyone, I just received bad news. Fake Nagesh is dead, he got run over by a dog sled team. Hopefully The Daily WTF will survive this tragedy ...

Kill all the Nageshes. Let Vishnu sort them out.

PiisAWheeL · 2012-06-08 Reply Admin

Doubter:
ObiWayneKenobi:
Doubter:
It's assholes like you that give decent hard working C# developers a bad name. I am so sick of seeing the flame VB comments. Its not the language that's bad, its the developers themselves. And before you get your panties in a bunch about the language, stop begging for all the things that make VB nice. I dunno, like background compilation, intellisense that works, and while all the C# devs railed about optional param's... they sure are quiet about it now that C# has them.
All the high and mighty C# devs can sit around and jerk each other off telling each other how great their language is, and the VB devs just keep getting the job done. Most of the time the compiled code is identical to whatever garbage the equally bad C# devs produce. Garbage in, garbage out.

Ugh. I hate getting worked up this early in the morning.

It's not VB devs, but I see that "who cares about doing things correct? Just sling some code!" mentality far more often in VB guys than C# guys, and VB guys seem to be more likely to not care about things like the SOLID principles, or using an ORM or IoC container or advanced things like that. I don't hate the language, I hate the mentality around the language.

Fine. I can understand that, and for a long time, that probably was the case. BUT, I have also seen a lot of C# devs and uninformed managers have the false sense of security that just because its done in C#, its magically wunderbar, and naturally better than anything else, akin to sliced bread. Doing it right is more than picking a language of the month, its all the "other" stuff thats hard.

Its also easy to slam the VB3 - VB6 era, but lets face it, its the only language of its time (not counting C and its derivatives) that has lasted, for good or bad; Delphi, Paradox, dbase, PowerBuilder and the rest faded away. Without the pervasivness of the product, I doubt Visual Studio would be in the position its in today.

I started with visual basic. It was a great little language. Definitelly a good language for beginners. I stopped using it because I needed to do things with it that it simply didn't support at the time (binary operations comes to mind). Not sure how the language has evolved because I haven't kept up on it in like 10 years.

So in my experience, a lot of devs get wet with vb, and then move on when it will no longer suit their purpose. It has always (in my head at least) been the "playskool" language.

Oh, and I also hated having to install the fucking vb library on every machine I ever needed to install my software on. Thats when I switched to c++. Does vb still do that?

Addendum (2012-06-08 10:56): Actually, fisher-price comes to mind... vb: Play Laugh Grow.

2012-06-08 Reply Admin

Macbeth truly grokked the general state of code, and this thread:

... but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

2012-06-08 Reply Admin

PiisAWheeL:
Oh, and I also hated having to install the fucking vb library on every machine I ever needed to install my software on. Thats when I switched to c++. Does vb still do that?

That stopped when M$ got around to shipping the runtime as part of the Windows install.

In terms of "VB" that particular language stopped at VB6. Since then it is just a .Net language so the idea that VB vs C# is even an argument is just silly, and perpetuated out of ignorance.

2012-06-08 Reply Admin

VB6 legacy app. I can see why they'd be reluctant to make changes during an integration. My first workplace had the attitude of 'don't touch it lest we bring down the whole house of cards' with their legacy VB6 app, sadly, I don't remember the details of how it was designed outside of it had code generating code and took 6 hours to build.

2012-06-08 Reply Admin

Fake Nagesh wanted to be buried in a black suit. Fortunately another deceased came into the funeral home wearing a black suit and the undertaker was able to switch heads.

2012-06-08 Reply Admin

Mr A:
Personally, I think the project leads were right to stop the enhancements. It's an old project with (almost certainly) no unit testing, and a crappy structure full of unintended action at a distance. The only options are to re-write from scratch or leave it alone. Personally, the wtf for me is any suggestion that you'd want to open this can of worms.

This is correct. There is also the issue of the other teams mental maps of the application. Any changes you make to the application will mess that up somewhat and that is a hidden cost. Also a likely reason legacy applications get messed up sideways is due to incomplete attempts to revamp them, so now instead of having one way the application does something you have three and a half way. The original way, the new actually worse way, a better way, and the misc I had no idea what I'm doing way.

2012-06-08 Reply Admin

Gibbon1:
Mr A:
Personally, I think the project leads were right to stop the enhancements. It's an old project with (almost certainly) no unit testing, and a crappy structure full of unintended action at a distance. The only options are to re-write from scratch or leave it alone. Personally, the wtf for me is any suggestion that you'd want to open this can of worms.

This is correct. There is also the issue of the other teams mental maps of the application. Any changes you make to the application will mess that up somewhat and that is a hidden cost. Also a likely reason legacy applications get messed up sideways is due to incomplete attempts to revamp them, so now instead of having one way the application does something you have three and a half way. The original way, the new actually worse way, a better way, and the misc I had no idea what I'm doing way.

Oh, Technical Debt, why didnt you say so? ;)

2012-06-08 Reply Admin

I'M SPARTACUS.

2012-06-08 Reply Admin

My_Name:
Mike:
As for running off to various auction sites to get a copy of VB6. What sort of a 2 bit, half baked, amateur organisation is that?
Agreed, as someone already pointed out VB6/VS6 is still available thru MSDN.

VB6 yes, the rest of VS6 no.

My_Name:
But even if it wasn't, Visual Studio can convert/upgrade it to VB.Net. Granted, the conversion is not always 100% perfect, but at least that would be a fall-back option if VS6 wasn't available.

Wrong. VS .Net has a component that reads a VB6 project and produces a VB .Net project, but the output isn't a conversion, isn't an upgrade, isn't 10% perfect, and isn't a fallback option. It's easier to write a new VB .Net application from scratch than to clean up the result of the supposed conversion.

VC++ projects get converted more reasonably. It's not really a problem that the rest of VS6 is unavailable now.

My_Name:
I also wonder what kind of amateur group this is, that they don't keep all their old cds?!

Microsoft told them they wouldn't have to keep old CDs because expired MSDN subscriptions would still allow downloads. Some people call me unprofessional for not being 10% trustful of Microsoft.

2012-06-08 Reply Admin

I'm quite certain that "Scrummy" is a god damned troll just like fake Nagesh.

Nagesh · 2012-06-10 Reply Admin

D-Coder:
Remy Porter:
Hey everyone, I just received bad news. Fake Nagesh is dead, he got run over by a dog sled team. Hopefully The Daily WTF will survive this tragedy ...
Kill all the Nageshes. Let Vishnu sort them out.

Learn mythology first. Shiva responsible for all destruction. Kali is his instrument.

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