The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2009-04-24 Reply Admin

Populus:
amischiefr:
John Whittet:
Wait, that table contains every possible permutation of mods? *facepalm*
Hopefully this is because when it was first developed there were strict guidelines on what series of mods were available so as to restrict certain combinations. Hopefully...

Exactly ... this is more or less the right solution if only certain sequences of mods are permitted.

It's still better to normalize and then validate. And this table doesn't appear to be part of validation, based on the fact that the ALL_MODS table doesn't have a field for which maintenance procedure is being performed.

RobFreundlich · 2009-04-24 Reply Admin

[quote user="Jay] What a great idea! Just have a list of common comments that users can select from. Think how much time it would save.

First!
The real WTF is using VB.
Irish Girl!
Wooden table!
This story is obviously fake because no rational human being would do any such thing.
If we make a few additional assumptions what the programmer did here is completely valid.

... and maybe a dozen or so more.[/quote]

Reminds me of a joke:

A guy is sitting in a bar, having a drink or two. Every once in a while, someone will call out a number, and the patrons will laugh. He gets more and more confused, until someone calls out "37", and the patrons go absolutely nuts - rolling on the floor with laughter. So he grabs one of the waiters.

Guy: "Uh, excuse me, I'm confused. Every once in a while, someone calls out a number and the crowd laughs. What's going on?"

Waiter: "Oh, those are the regulars. They've told the same jokes and stories so many times, they decided to give them all numbers. So now instead of telling the joke, they just call out the number."

Guy: "Cool! But what about the last one? Someone called out 37 and everyone laughed much, much harder than usual."

Waiter: "Oh, that's because they'd never heard that one before."

Code Dependent · 2009-04-24 Reply Admin

RobFreundlich:
A guy is sitting in a bar, having a drink or two. Every once in a while, someone will call out a number, and the patrons will laugh. He gets more and more confused, until someone calls out "37", and the patrons go absolutely nuts - rolling on the floor with laughter. So he grabs one of the waiters.
Guy: "Uh, excuse me, I'm confused. Every once in a while, someone calls out a number and the crowd laughs. What's going on?"

Waiter: "Oh, those are the regulars. They've told the same jokes and stories so many times, they decided to give them all numbers. So now instead of telling the joke, they just call out the number."

Guy: "Cool! But what about the last one? Someone called out 37 and everyone laughed much, much harder than usual."

Waiter: "Oh, that's because they'd never heard that one before."

Guy: "Reckon I could try it?"

Waiter: "Sure, go ahead. 103 is a funny one."

Guy: "103!" (room gets very quiet)

Guy: "What happened? Nobody laughed."

Waiter: "Some people just don't know how to tell a joke."

cod3_complete · 2009-04-24 Reply Admin

And of course, the bad news was that this was just the tip of the iceberg.

Wait! What's the rest of the iceberg this guy hit? Sadistic minds want to know! j/k...

2009-04-24 Reply Admin

cod3_complete:
And of course, the bad news was that this was just the tip of the iceberg.

Wait! What's the rest of the iceberg this guy hit? Sadistic minds want to know! j/k...

Yes, it looks like the story is incomplete. WTF! I want to know what is the rest of the iceberg too!

2009-04-24 Reply Admin

wild guess...

sum(k = 1 .. n, choose(n, k)) * sum(i = 1 .. n, sum(j = 0 .. i-1, choose(i,j)))

n = maximum number of steps

First line is number of possible non-shorthand step combinations Second line is number of ways to insert commas in each set of steps.

yes? no?

x anon

2009-04-24 Reply Admin

So the puzzle about how many possible mods had to be answered, I made a quick python program:

N=45
mem = dict();


def rcount(p, before, skipping):
    if ( p >= N ):
        if( skipping):
            return 0
        else:
            return 1
            
    if(skipping):
        return count(p+1, 1, 1) + count(p+1, 1, 0) 
    if(before):
        return count(p+1,1,0) + count(p+1,1,1) + count(p+1,0,0)
    return count(p+1,1,0) + count(p+1,0,0)
    

def count(p, before, skipping):
    key = (p, before, skipping)

    try:
        return mem[key]
    except:
        r = rcount(p, before, skipping)
        mem[key] =  r
        return r
    
print count(0, 0, 0)

The result is 101302819786919522

pink_fairy · 2009-04-24 Reply Admin

anonymous :
So the puzzle about how many possible mods had to be answered, I made a quick python program:

No it doesn't.

There's requirements, there's (wretched) design, there's (brain-dead) implementation, there's (predictably unhappy) day-to-day service delivery, and finally there's Supremely Cretinous Silver Bullet.

Similarly, there's math(s) and then there's counting.

Counting is inelegant. Symbols suffice.

2009-04-24 Reply Admin

Hulser:
Alexander:
I don't consider this a WTF. There is probably only a very small number of sequences valid (in the sense of "You are still allowed to fly the A/C afterwards"). And the rules to determine the valid sequences are probably somewhat complicated. Thus a field validation would be a disatrous big piece of code with rules, exceptions, exceptions of the exceptions, ... So it's perfectly reasonable to outsource the real field validation to the most effective device to do this (the human brain of somebody understanding the A/C maintenance process) and to cache the results of this validation in a list.

To those people who are suggesting that the design is intended to restrict the options to valid combinations, I think you missed something in the first sentence of the post. The guy was hired to implement an way to "automatically add mods". If the business process was that some person reviewed the new combination to make sure it was valid, they wouldn't be adding a feature to automatically add any new user-entered combination to the look-up table.

Of course you are right. The story presented the table as the WTF, not the requirement. TRWTF is some unholy combination of the two.

ingenium?

RobFreundlich · 2009-04-24 Reply Admin

Code Dependent:
RobFreundlich:
A guy is sitting in a bar, having a drink or two. Every once in a while, someone will call out a number, and the patrons will laugh. He gets more and more confused, until someone calls out "37", and the patrons go absolutely nuts - rolling on the floor with laughter. So he grabs one of the waiters.
Guy: "Uh, excuse me, I'm confused. Every once in a while, someone calls out a number and the crowd laughs. What's going on?"

Waiter: "Oh, those are the regulars. They've told the same jokes and stories so many times, they decided to give them all numbers. So now instead of telling the joke, they just call out the number."

Guy: "Cool! But what about the last one? Someone called out 37 and everyone laughed much, much harder than usual."

Waiter: "Oh, that's because they'd never heard that one before."
Guy: "Reckon I could try it?"

Waiter: "Sure, go ahead. 103 is a funny one."

Guy: "103!" (room gets very quiet)

Guy: "What happened? Nobody laughed."

Waiter: "Some people just don't know how to tell a joke."

Nice! Here's another variant I've heard. After the original conversation, we get:

Some Patron: "52!"

Crowd: jeers and catcalls

Guy: "What was that all about?"

Waiter: "Oh, that's Smith. He really ought to give up on that one - he can never quite handle the Swedish accent."

2009-04-24 Reply Admin

pink_fairy:
anonymous :
So the puzzle about how many possible mods had to be answered, I made a quick python program:
No it doesn't.
There's requirements, there's (wretched) design, there's (brain-dead) implementation, there's (predictably unhappy) day-to-day service delivery, and finally there's Supremely Cretinous Silver Bullet.

Similarly, there's math(s) and then there's counting.

Counting is inelegant. Symbols suffice.

Except of course when you consider all symbols given so far were plain wrong guesses about what the number is, no, it is not 2^45 and it is definitely not 45! It was definitely not the silly sum of combinations someone posted...

What I shown you was math translated to a python program, it was not 'counting'.

Want symbols? The result for N=45 is f(45, 0,0) where: { f(0, x, 0) = 1 f(0, x, 1) = 0

f(i, 1, 1) = f(i-1, 1,1) + f(i-1, 1,0) f(i, 1, 0) = f(i-1, 0,0) + f(i-1, 1,0) f(i, 0, 0) = f(i-1, 1,0) + f(i-1, 0,0) }

regards.

2009-04-25 Reply Admin

Think about it... it just make sense.

The only entries that exist in the table are that entries that actually be used... that means if somehow certain technicans skipped one of the steps that's actually be required, he would not be able to enter it here.

Only that it there should be function that used to check the missing steps...... :P

beerful · 2009-04-25 Reply Admin

The fact that anybody working on that system can see it as 'workable' makes me feel nauseous

2009-04-25 Reply Admin

Actually, all calculation methods so far are wrong.

If anybody wants the real result, in a symbolic way then take this matrix:

[ 2 0 1 ] [ 1 1 0 ] [ 1 1 0 ]

Raise the matrix to the 45th power (K=45) and the count will be in the top left of the result matrix.

I.E: If K=1 Then there are two results: 1 and [empty] . Do the above procedure and you get 2.

For K=2 the result is 5: (empty); 1 ; 2; 1,2 ; 1-2; And the thing works.

For K=3, the result is 13:

(empty) 1 1,2 1-2 1,2,3 1-2,3 1,2-3 1-3 1,3 2 2,3 2-3 3

The math behind is a long story and I don't think you guys are too interested in it.

2009-04-26 Reply Admin

Dr. Evil:
Jack:
rong1982:
搬家搬家搬家公司在職進修婚紗新娘秘書汽車旅館彩妝造型新娘秘書票貼室內設計室內設計外遇抓姦應收帳款徵信徵信社外遇徵信徵信社外遇植牙牙齒矯正坐月子宜蘭民宿婚禮佈置宜蘭民宿推薦催眠派報太陽能熱水器 Shade sail nike shoes 關鍵字廣告租屋搬家搬家買房子花蓮民宿花蓮民宿花店租房子 xo醬房屋貸款搬家公司減肥減重床墊創業加盟團體服學英文英文補習班勞工體檢資源回收生日禮物團體服團體制服班服塑膠日立家電飾品批發 MBA 在职研究生在职博士电动隔膜泵自吸泵化工泵离心泵磁力泵螺杆泵水泵隔膜泵气动隔膜泵婚禮佈置婚禮佈置婚禮佈置酒店經紀酒店經紀班服配件團體服配件團體服班服團體服班服團體

Ok...wtf is a shade sail?

So out of all that, you choose to question Shade sail? I am more curious about "Dr. diaphragm self-priming pump centrifugal chemical pumps."

Also what about "diaphragm pumps screw arranged marriage"?

2009-04-26 Reply Admin

3 692 890 883 188 542 000 000

2009-04-27 Reply Admin

emurphy:
ideot - that's me:
jimlangrunner:
Code Dependent:
What we need on TDWTF is a similar method of selecting from a table of all possible comments. We could just enter a number and it would select the comment and insert it for us.
Of course, we all know what the first entry in the table would be...
What would that be? Does it have anything to do with Irish Girl?
And a wooden table?

Hot.

...and a turkey baster

Cantabrigian · 2009-04-27 Reply Admin

Bappi:
John Winters:
Even more than 2^45, because there are different ways of entering the same combination. The reasoning above only considers cases where all the steps are entered separately, but if for instance we had:
1,2,3,4,5,6

then the same combination could be entered as:

1-2,3,4,5,6 1-3,4,5,6 1-4,5,6 1-5,6 1-2,3-4,5,6 1-2,3-4,5-6 1-2,3,4,5-6

etc, etc...

And each of these needs its own row in the table. The total number would be quite a lot more than 2^45.

No, it wouldn't. You're forgetting that this is an in-house, custom development, and that if you want records added to the table, you have to ask someone to do it for you. The reply, for each of the combinations you list, would be to "just type 1-6."

Ah, I think I can help out there. What we need is an extra table to map the bad combinations to their correct versions.

2009-04-29 Reply Admin

Parsing those strings was part of the job of the first C++ class I ever wrote back in 1993

2010-02-26 Reply Admin

Jay:
Given that, the correct total count is 2^45. Each of the forty-five numbers may or may not appear, but the order is fixed.

Close but not quite. I'd say 2^45-1, based on the assumption that no one's going to log the maintenance action corresponding to "I didn't do a damned thing, I skipped every one of the 45 possible steps".

The Mod Out System

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