The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2011-01-20 Reply Admin

Not troll and not wtf, it is good that they stopped working on it (see my last sentence).

The "phantoms" had good reasons to keep the code as it was, as I believe that certification is an important part of medical software. (we don't want it to blow up do we?)

Instead of complaining to their boss or discussing priorities the developers wasted quite a lot of money "fighting" it out with the maintainers. As the article reads "it was all the maintainers fault" too early, too late, we could not be bothered to find them, or even ask them about the reversed changes and so on.

A project where both teams have different targets is doomed to fail and if you can't be bothered to talk with the others (because you are right and they are wrong) you are part of the problem.

2011-01-20 Reply Admin

perfect picture of those two

valerion · 2011-01-20 Reply Admin

no name:
Is anyone else visualizing these two as Penn and Teller?
(No disrespect intended - I'm a huge fan of Penn and Teller.)

Yep, in my mind they were a cross between Penn & Teller and the Dementors from Harry Potter.

2011-01-20 Reply Admin

Rhywden:
Mason Wheeler:
Again, never under any circumstances should a competent developer use a third-party library with no source available. It's just begging for trouble.

Ah. And all DirectX-developers are incompetent then?

Or, indeed, any Windows API at all.

So, if you're writing code for Windows, and want to open a file (or display anything, or accept input, or whatever) then you obviously need to access the hardware directly, because you can't use the Windows API for accessing files, because the source code isn't available...

Even if you use Linux, where the source code is available - would you really want to fix a "bug" in the kernel just for your software, and have anyone who uses it have to apply your custom kernel patch...

You have to decide whether to trust the third party library developer. Some you can probably trust, others you probably shouldn't.

2011-01-20 Reply Admin

River Tam:
2 by 2 .. hands of blue ..
they're coming ..

+1

2011-01-20 Reply Admin

Who hasn't done something like this?

campkev · 2011-01-20 Reply Admin

MRI explosions are serious business. In addition to utilizing an obscenely-powerful 3.0-Tesla magnet, an MRI’s superconducting coil requires a good 1,500 liters or so of liquid helium to be kept near absolute zero (-454°F). A several-hundred degree jump to room temperature will cause whole lot of evaporation pressure, which is usually ventilated by a series of rupture disks and blowout panels. But ice buildup and other conditions can cause safety measures to fail, leading to shrapnel taking out solid-brick walls.

Having been recently diagnosed with MS and looking forward to a lifetime of yearly (at a minimum) MRI's, I would like you thank you for informing me of this possiblility. This should make them SO much less stressful.</sarcasm>

frits · 2011-01-20 Reply Admin

frits:
Who hasn't done something like this? [image]

FTFY

frits · 2011-01-20 Reply Admin

campkev:
MRI explosions are serious business. In addition to utilizing an obscenely-powerful 3.0-Tesla magnet, an MRI’s superconducting coil requires a good 1,500 liters or so of liquid helium to be kept near absolute zero (-454°F). A several-hundred degree jump to room temperature will cause whole lot of evaporation pressure, which is usually ventilated by a series of rupture disks and blowout panels. But ice buildup and other conditions can cause safety measures to fail, leading to shrapnel taking out solid-brick walls.

Having been recently diagnosed with MS and looking forward to a lifetime of yearly (at a minimum) MRI's, I would like you thank you for informing me of this possiblility. This should make them SO much less stressful.</sarcasm>

Sorry to hear that.

You should request some good psychoactives from you doctor to help you relax.

2011-01-20 Reply Admin

Rich:
Captcha - erat. Is that an electronic rat?

No. It was.

Coyne · 2011-01-20 Reply Admin

josefx:
The "phantoms" had good reasons to keep the code as it was, as I believe that certification is an important part of medical software. (we don't want it to blow up do we?)

...well, yes. But certifying this kludge in the first place was like certifying a 45 magnum for use in surgery.

2011-01-20 Reply Admin

Coyne:
...well, yes. But certifying this kludge in the first place was like certifying a 45 magnum for use in surgery.

Seriously, who hasn't done something like this?

Coyne · 2011-01-20 Reply Admin

frits:
frits:
Who hasn't done something like this? [image]
FTFY

Fortunately, I've managed to avoid doing anything that bad. The worst mistake I ever made "merely" annoyed 13,000 people.

2011-01-20 Reply Admin

mystery troller:
Coyne:
...well, yes. But certifying this kludge in the first place was like certifying a 45 magnum for use in surgery.

Seriously, who hasn't done something like this?

You're comedy routine sucks. Time for a new one.

2011-01-20 Reply Admin

TRWTF is using Microsoft infrastructure, libraries, and dev tools for ANY life-critical piece of equipment, even the monitoring of such equipment.

I know people in hospital IT. More issues (and dare I say, more life-threatening mistakes) occur because of required isolation of networks and lack of critical patches being applied to various pieces of medical equipment.

The ONLY OS certified for this use is QNX. Period. The only OS's that ought to be used for the display and monitoring are Unixen and Linuxen, period. This isn't due to their architectural superiority over windows, but due to the fact that it is FAAAAAR easier to audit Linux and Unix patches than it is Windows patches.

RedHat tells you that they have updates for Apache, BIND, and Samba today. If your product doesn't use those server apps then you don't need them.

Microsoft tells you that they have MagicPatch # 34342342343, 234324209324, and 329458u342433 available today. Each of those patches makes a different change to IIS, KERNEL.SYS, CIFS.DLL, etc. How are you supposed to audit that?

But like in most other companies, the management of medical device manufacturer are idiots who always bow down to what the MS salespeople say, even though it really isn't a good idea.

I wonder how many people have been killed by hospitals who make mistakes due to the inefficiencies and problems caused by MS products? I know of at least one.

2011-01-20 Reply Admin

"...well, yes. But certifying this kludge in the first place was like certifying a 45 magnum for use in surgery."

WTF is a .45 magnum?

boog · 2011-01-20 Reply Admin

The Phantom Duodenum:
You're comedy routine sucks. Time for a new one.

I wouldn't call that a new one, but I'll admit it's been relatively successful recently.

2011-01-20 Reply Admin

Josh:
The ONLY OS certified for this use is QNX. Period. The only OS's that ought to be used for the display and monitoring are Unixen and Linuxen, period. This isn't due to their architectural superiority over windows, but due to the fact that it is FAAAAAR easier to audit Linux and Unix patches than it is Windows patches.
RedHat tells you that they have updates for Apache, BIND, and Samba today. If your product doesn't use those server apps then you don't need them.

Microsoft tells you that they have MagicPatch # 34342342343, 234324209324, and 329458u342433 available today. Each of those patches makes a different change to IIS, KERNEL.SYS, CIFS.DLL, etc. How are you supposed to audit that?

So, you're conflating OS updates (Windows) and application updates (Linux) and try to tell us that this is a fair comparison?

What about those Kernel updates my Ubuntu box receives in regular intervals? Don't those count?

And I just did look up a random security update, namely KB982665 and found these two pages: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS10-055.mspx http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982665

Found neither magic nor kernel.sys there. Hyperbole much?

2011-01-20 Reply Admin

the penguin:
The Phantom Duodenum:
You're comedy routine sucks. Time for a new one.
I wouldn't call that a new one, but...

I'm pretty sure I would have strangled you before you finished your sentence.

boog · 2011-01-20 Reply Admin

almost boog (but not quite):
ze penginn:
The Phantom Duodenum:
You're comedy routine sucks. Time for a new one.
I wouldn't call that a new one, but...
I'm pretty sure I would have blah blah excessive-violence blah...

Unfortunately, not as successful as the mispelling/grammer troll. Keep trying though.

D-Coder · 2011-01-20 Reply Admin

@Deprecated:
A news report of an MRI explosion at a hospital would cause most people to 'chuckle'?
That is waaay beyond "WTF", more like OMG or Holy $#%#$.

Most people don't know anything about MRIs.

In fact, a surprising proportion of the population can't spell MRI.

2011-01-20 Reply Admin

My understanding is that the "Phantom Duo" should have been debugging on an actual unit, but in a test lab. And for some reason, they took it upon themselves to go debug the problem on an actual, production piece of hardware.

2011-01-20 Reply Admin

D-Coder:
In fact, a surprising proportion of the population can't spell MRI.

Emareye?

Eternal Density · 2011-01-20 Reply Admin

Rhywden:
Mason Wheeler:
Again, never under any circumstances should a competent developer use a third-party library with no source available. It's just begging for trouble.

Ah. And all DirectX-developers are incompetent then?

Fascinating. I somehow doubt that you know what you're talking about.

I've got another piece of advice:

Never under any circumstances make broad and sweeping statements. They're usually and inevitably wrong.

Back when I used DirectX (with VB6) I was definitely incompetent :P But you're right regardless.

Soviut · 2011-01-20 Reply Admin

Josh:
TRWTF is using Microsoft infrastructure, libraries, and dev tools for ANY life-critical piece of equipment, even the monitoring of such equipment.

I don't see how using Microsoft dev tools somehow makes the code YOU write unstable? Besides, nothing Microsoft-related was even involved in the indecent! It was the library a 3rd party wrote.

You may have a "one true system" ideology, but the truth is, Windows runs tonnes of monitoring, automation, manufacturing and research equipment without a problem. The only time there IS a problem is when there's a bug in the CUSTOM software. Hell, the tunnel boring machines in Europe are controlled by a Windows system and the physical equipment breaks down far more frequently than the software does!

2011-01-21 Reply Admin

An alternate explanation:
josefx:
Wow those two gurus did their best to keep the library certified.

Global arrays instead of dynamic allocated stack reduce the chance of a stackoverflow. (You don't want those where things can blow up)

It has been certified for VS 2005 so why use 2008.

Error logging, always good.

No unnecessary changes. Don't fix what is not broken, after all it worked until they updated it.

I somehow don't believe that the software outright ignored errors. After all the only bug mentioned in the story was not even real.

So if the only problem was its usability they could have added an additional wrapping layer and left the working certified code alone.

Good riddance, but the real wtf is wasting money to fix bug free code

Are you going for the "Troll of the month" price? And if so I would like to nominate you.

If you are not going for the "troll of the month" I would like to nominate you to "Most likely poster to give the daily wtf new stuff to post"

+1

WOW - They did their best to "keep the library ... umm ... certified". By whom? THAWTE? The nice people at Microsoft?

"Certified for VS2005" is just hilarious all alone. My HTML is certified for VS2005 but not notepad. It's also certified for viewing with a web browser, but not if you're wearing stained underpants.

... ad infinitum...

I'm sure you understand all of the words, but perhaps when they join together into sentences, and fit into a context that is so well understood that it never gets repeated... and so is wholly unknown to Certain Managers & Gurus, it all gets a bit fuzzy.

Thus we nominate for both "Troll Of The Year" AND "Post Most Likely to cause a flame war".

-1 for not reminding us that TRRRRRRRWTF is VB5, PC-DOS, non-Sony walkmen, and the Reliant Robin.

2011-01-21 Reply Admin

Billy Goat Gruff The Lesser:
An alternate explanation:
josefx:
Wow those two gurus did their best to keep the library certified.
...

Good riddance, but the real wtf is wasting money to fix bug free code

Are you going for the "Troll of the month" price? And if so I would like to nominate you.

If you are not going for the "troll of the month" I would like to nominate you to "Most likely poster to give the daily wtf new stuff to post"

+1

WOW - They did their best to "keep the library ... umm ... certified". By whom? THAWTE? The nice people at Microsoft?

"Certified for VS2005" is just hilarious all alone. My HTML is certified for VS2005 but not notepad. It's also certified for viewing with a web browser, but not if you're wearing stained underpants.

... ad infinitum...

I'm sure you understand all of the words, but perhaps when they join together into sentences, and fit into a context that is so well understood that it never gets repeated... and so is wholly unknown to Certain Managers & Gurus, it all gets a bit fuzzy.

Thus we nominate for both "Troll Of The Year" AND "Post Most Likely to cause a flame war".

-1 for not reminding us that TRRRRRRRWTF is VB5, PC-DOS, non-Sony walkmen, and the Reliant Robin.

Woops, when I read that I was sure certified meant certified for use with medical systems. After reading it again I only find process certification (a worthless wtf) and Visual Studio certification. I see myself corrected.

Still biggest wtf was the missing teamwork/wasting money.

2011-01-21 Reply Admin

josefx:
Still biggest wtf was the missing teamwork/wasting money.

That goes without saying. The amount of money that was burned by those morons was surpassed only by their complete and utter ignorance with respect to basic software development skill.

The worst part was that there was absolutely zero interest in ever being better than they were-- they knew everything there was to know about software development and design. Of course the best way to design an interface for a "library" that accepts a collection of records that contain multiple data per record is to create a public array on the library for each datum and parse records out of the collection of parallel arrays! Only an idiot would make a "class" and have a single collection of instances of the class! Classes add too much risk! They're hard!

Why would I expose:

class Foo { 
    public int A { get; set; }
    public int B { get; set; }
}

class TheOneLibrary {
    public Result SubmitRequest(Collection<Foo> foos) 
    {}
}

when I could expose:

class TheOneLibrary {
    public int[] As;
    public int[] Bs;
    public Result SubmitRequest() 
    {} // Hope you filled the right (undoc'd) arrays!
}

(figure 20+ of those arrays, all used for different things based on what request you're submitting. This was the easy part.)

2011-01-21 Reply Admin

Every company has these billing leaches. Years ago I worked for an ISO 9001 company that had a billing leach running their QA department. I was developing alone on a project that managed to get 5 QA people along with the QA manager testing my code full time. This was not some cool mission critical code, just a simple db backed website. Needless to say the budget was drained pretty quickly.

2011-01-21 Reply Admin

TRWTF: A PMP-certified project manager is critical to a project.

2011-01-21 Reply Admin

dadasd:
dtech:
try and fix
try to fix

I was with you on the first one, but on this you've changed the meaning.

2011-01-22 Reply Admin

Peter Cook and Dudley Moore

2011-01-23 Reply Admin

Wow... THAT is a reference I haven't seen in quite a while.

2011-01-23 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Only an idiot would make a "class" and have a single collection of instances of the class! Classes add too much risk! They're hard!

Only someone that lacks knowledge of programming would say this. Unbelievable, to say that classes add too much risk and are hard.

That's the real WTF here. That this "anonymous" person would surely have to be one of the phantom duo with an inane axe to grimd

2011-01-24 Reply Admin

csharp:
Anonymous:
Only an idiot would make a "class" and have a single collection of instances of the class! Classes add too much risk! They're hard!

Only someone that lacks knowledge of programming would say this. Unbelievable, to say that classes add too much risk and are hard.

That's the real WTF here. That this "anonymous" person would surely have to be one of the phantom duo with an inane axe to grimd

Hey foreigner, I think you need to look up the word "sarcasm" - in fact, judging from your terrible spelling and grammar you need to look up a lot of words. You call that English? It looks like you just vomited a bunch of letters onto the page.

2021-08-19 Reply Admin

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The Phantom Duo

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