• Chronomium (unregistered)

    Kind of like the inner-platform effect, except more parallel.

    So "Motorcycle-Sidecar-Effect".

  • (cs)
    article:
    ...at least he had job security
    ...until the assignment would unexpectedly end.
  • Steven Seagal's ponytail (unregistered)

    The real WTF is the attempt at a general solution to the problem (lexer, parser, SED script, C/C++ code - really?) when just keeping a diff between customer revisions and manually making the change would be simpler and less error-prone. Instead of simply making the change the customer wants, they have to fix their program and massage the input data to get it to come out as expected.

    I understand the inclination to come up with a general solution, but the added layer of indirection can be a huge pain in the ass if you don't do it right. I have a coworker who does this with our app configurations, and instead of me just adding a line in a YAML file like I used to be able to do, I have to go in and patch his stupid program to accommodate it, then update all of our other apps that use the program to get the latest version. And he thinks this is saving us time and effort (and wonders why I get grumpy about it)...

  • (cs) in reply to Steven Seagal's ponytail
    Steven Seagal's ponytail:
    The real WTF is the attempt at a general solution to the problem (lexer, parser, SED script, C/C++ code - really?) when just keeping a diff between customer revisions and manually making the change would be simpler and less error-prone. Instead of simply making the change the customer wants, they have to fix their program and massage the input data to get it to come out as expected.

    I understand the inclination to come up with a general solution, but the added layer of indirection can be a huge pain in the ass if you don't do it right. I have a coworker who does this with our app configurations, and instead of me just adding a line in a YAML file like I used to be able to do, I have to go in and patch his stupid program to accommodate it, then update all of our other apps that use the program to get the latest version. And he thinks this is saving us time and effort (and wonders why I get grumpy about it)...

    At least you have job security.

  • (cs)

    "...started back in the 1960s – long before anyone had heard of 3rd Normal Form... "

    Defined by Codd in 1971, so no they probably would not have heard of it. :)

  • Nagesh (unregistered)

    Is it really that hard to parse that? It looks like a simple field-length mapping.

    Sorry, I mean, I am not being seeing a problem here in Hyderabad.

  • Axeman (unregistered)

    Ah, The good old days eh?

  • MumpsGeek (unregistered)

    Shouldn't be too hard to handle with a simple Cache (MUMPS) routine.

    Simples!

  • (cs)

    This would not have been half as bad if the customer had a standardized format for reporting the changes. However changing the format of import data that frequently is generally a bad idea.

  • (cs)

    It could have just been a single Perl program.

    /me ducks

  • (cs)

    Why was the client changing their COBOL code that frequently? And why did the records need importing into an Oracle database weekly? They would surely have been better off either sticking to COBOL or transitioning to a non-COBOL system rather than trying to keep the two systems running in parallel with a constantly changing interface.

  • (cs)

    "COBOL-format record and record descriptors don't respond to change very well..."

    Only because they were built using archaic development methodologies.

  • (cs)

    Of course, we all know how that story ends, and five decades later, COBOL programmers are still paying for that arrogance today.

    I honestly can't tell if Alex is speaking for or against COBOL here. Clearly COBOL did enough things right that it's still clinging to existence fifty years later.

  • (cs) in reply to pjt33
    pjt33:
    Why was the client changing their COBOL code that frequently? And why did the records need importing into an Oracle database weekly? They would surely have been better off either sticking to COBOL or transitioning to a non-COBOL system rather than trying to keep the two systems running in parallel with a constantly changing interface.
    That was my thought too. What kind of production system database changes that fast, and in so many unexpected ways?
  • C-Derb (unregistered)

    I had a job while going to college that was very similar to this. We were receiving data files from 1000+ customers, usually in Excel or Lotus format. There were 4 of us who spent all day manipulating these files into a fixed width format to be imported into our database.

    One week I got really grumpy about it, vented to my coworkers, vented to my roommates, cursed our clients while driving to and from work.

    Then I got my paycheck and realized it was exactly the same no matter what my attitude was. Things got better after that.

  • David Emery (unregistered)

    He should have dug around the Open Source community. There's a bunch of code in Ada as part of the GNAT (open source) Ada compiler that interprets COBOL PIC statements (that I helped write about 15 years ago.) With that code, he could have fed the PIC statements and generated the associated read/write routines, reusing the design even if he didn't want to link the Ada routines in to C or C++ (another feature of Ada...) The syntax for PIC clauses is quite static, you should capture the grammar/semantics of COBOL once.

    But someone show me a similar big fat ugly messy data structure definition in some other language. Do you think that struc definitions for this data in C would be less readable? He should be grateful for COBOL's ability to represent this structure, even if it was un-normalized....

  • steve (unregistered)

    http://sourceforge.net/projects/cb2xml/

    there are many standard copybook translators

  • Sayer (unregistered) in reply to C-Derb
    C-Derb:
    I had a job while going to college that was very similar to this. We were receiving data files from 1000+ customers, usually in Excel or Lotus format. There were 4 of us who spent all day manipulating these files into a fixed width format to be imported into our database.

    One week I got really grumpy about it, vented to my coworkers, vented to my roommates, cursed our clients while driving to and from work.

    Then I got my paycheck and realized it was exactly the same no matter what my attitude was. Things got better after that.

    So the problem remained, but you just chose to not let it get you down.

  • AB (unregistered)

    When did Pat become James?

    "When you've been in IT for as long as Pat McGee,..."

    ABCD123456MCGEE JAMES PACCTAR ABCD65432104250CLRK010195INTN010397

    Oh I see it now, Pat is his middle name and he's one of those weirdo's that uses their middle name rather than their given name.

  • (cs) in reply to Steven Seagal's ponytail
    Steven Seagal's ponytail:
    The real WTF is the attempt at a general solution to the problem (lexer, parser, SED script, C/C++ code - really?) when just keeping a diff between customer revisions and manually making the change would be simpler and less error-prone. Instead of simply making the change the customer wants, they have to fix their program and massage the input data to get it to come out as expected.

    I understand the inclination to come up with a general solution, but the added layer of indirection can be a huge pain in the ass if you don't do it right. I have a coworker who does this with our app configurations, and instead of me just adding a line in a YAML file like I used to be able to do, I have to go in and patch his stupid program to accommodate it, then update all of our other apps that use the program to get the latest version. And he thinks this is saving us time and effort (and wonders why I get grumpy about it)...

    Well, I guess in both cases, the programmer of the intermediary layer expected it to work for everything the input could throw at it. It proved false, but "on paper" it would have saved everybody's time... If it worked.

  • (cs)

    My first proper coding job was a bit like this. Not quite COBOL but I was pulling data out of text files that had not-quite-fixed-width columns and numeric-fields-except-when-they-contain-a-letter and all sorts of similar exceptions.

    To complicate things further it was a two-dimensional set of rules (the client's customer's address will be in columns 60-80 on lines 5-10, that sort of thing) that had originally been designed to be printed by a dot-matrix printer onto pre-printed labels. I have no idea why whatever-it-was that produced those text files couldn't have been changed to send the data straight to the database but hey, it was a job.

    I did what I could to keep it maintainable, and to be fair I've never had my former employer ring me up asking for help. AFAIK my script is still working away on those horrible text files.

    Addendum (2012-06-19 11:55): customer's address will probably be in columns 60-80 on or around lines 5-10

  • ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL (unregistered)

    At the heart of the system was a Mmm hmm... 10,000 line okaaay... COBOL ummmm... record descriptor (TURNS WHITE AS A SHEET)

    But TRWTF is an actual WTF on Tuesday, amirite?! (So the by Principle of Equivalent Exchange we're going to miss Wednesday or Thursday, of course.)

  • Steven Seagal's ponytail (unregistered) in reply to Medinoc

    Right. If it works, you're a hero. If it doesn't work - well now you have two problems.

  • Steven Seagal's ponytail (unregistered) in reply to Medinoc
    Medinoc:
    Well, I guess in both cases, the programmer of the intermediary layer expected it to work for everything the input could throw at it. It proved false, but "on paper" it would have saved everybody's time... If it worked.
    Right. If it works, you're a hero. If it doesn't work - well now you have two problems.
  • (cs) in reply to Sayer
    Sayer:
    C-Derb:
    I had a job while going to college that was very similar to this. We were receiving data files from 1000+ customers, usually in Excel or Lotus format. There were 4 of us who spent all day manipulating these files into a fixed width format to be imported into our database.

    One week I got really grumpy about it, vented to my coworkers, vented to my roommates, cursed our clients while driving to and from work.

    Then I got my paycheck and realized it was exactly the same no matter what my attitude was. Things got better after that.

    So the problem remained, but you just chose to not let it get you down.

    No, he went to work the following day with his favourite automatic weapon...

  • C-Derb (unregistered) in reply to C-Octothorpe
    C-Octothorpe:
    No, he went to work the following day with his favourite automatic weapon...
    I would never condone that, but if you must, please shoot yourself first to make sure the weapon is working, then shoot others.
  • MBV (unregistered)

    So why didn't he write a COBOL program that fed the COBOL structures to Oracle? Seems like a lot easier to me, as Oracle has an interface for COBOL.

  • nB (unregistered) in reply to realmerlyn
    realmerlyn:
    It could have just been a single Perl program.

    /me ducks

    Honestly, I think that's what I would have done. I did something similar when we had a particular program at my lab that needed a massive struct{} for register map that changed from project to project. It was always given in an xls file (8 megs or so) and used to be manually transcoded to c structs. I wrote a perl script to do it. My job role was allocated two weeks for that activity, my script did it in 40 seconds. I got a promotion out of that :/

  • Anderson Silva (unregistered) in reply to Steven Seagal's ponytail
    Steven Seagal's ponytail:
    ...
    Less talky, more front-kicky.
  • ur (unregistered) in reply to C-Derb
    C-Derb:
    C-Octothorpe:
    No, he went to work the following day with his favourite automatic weapon...
    I would never condone that, but if you must, please shoot yourself first to make sure the weapon is working, then shoot others.
    Surely it's simpler just to carry a spare gun?
  • (cs)

    DATAPUMP ==> is feature of Oracle. It will allow you to pump data from any source.

  • Dave (unregistered) in reply to Steven Seagal's ponytail
    Steven Seagal's ponytail:
    The real WTF...general solution to the problem...manually making the change would be simpler and less error-prone...they have to fix their program...inclination to come up with a general solution....added layer of indirection...huge pain in the ass...get grumpy about it...

    Loving all the "well that doesn't sound like a particularly good way to do things" comments today.

    It's The Daily WTF, guys. That's kind of the point.

  • myName (unregistered)

    Two real WTFs - not using COBOL to write the translation program, and changing to Oracle.

  • (cs)

    Did Pat actually know COBOL, or did someone just show him how to read record descriptors?

  • (cs)

    So what the article is basically saying is that his sufficiently complicated C++ program ended up containing an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of COBOL? :P

  • Andrew (unregistered) in reply to Steven Seagal's ponytail
    Steven Seagal's ponytail:
    Instead of simply making the change the customer wants, they have to fix their program and massage the input data to get it to come out as expected.
    Feke Nagesh detected!
  • MindChild (unregistered) in reply to Nagesh
    Nagesh:
    Is it really that hard to parse that? It looks like a simple field-length mapping.

    Sorry, I mean, I am not being seeing a problem here in Hyderabad.

    Yes, it is. You see, the currency field will have commas... sometimes. And the record is comma delimited. The middle name field will... sometimes... have a char(13) instead of a space. And so on

  • Slapout (unregistered) in reply to nB
    nB:
    realmerlyn:
    It could have just been a single Perl program.

    /me ducks

    Honestly, I think that's what I would have done. I did something similar when we had a particular program at my lab that needed a massive struct{} for register map that changed from project to project. It was always given in an xls file (8 megs or so) and used to be manually transcoded to c structs. I wrote a perl script to do it. My job role was allocated two weeks for that activity, my script did it in 40 seconds. I got a promotion out of that :/

    How long did it take you to write the script?

  • Sayer (unregistered) in reply to C-Derb
    C-Derb:
    C-Octothorpe:
    No, he went to work the following day with his favourite automatic weapon...
    I would never condone that, but if you must, please shoot yourself first to make sure the weapon is working, then shoot others.

    I used to work at a fairly prominent Telecomm and we were so inundated with procedural (and managerial) stupidity that my coworkers would joke that if anyone ever showed up one day with a gun, all the other employees would be annoyed that they hadn't been notified and had left their guns at home.

    "Christ! It's gun day?! Why did no one tell me?! Do I have time to run home and get mine?"

  • d (unregistered)

    Kill it! Kill it with fire!!!

  • Geoff (unregistered) in reply to steve

    That was my first thought as well. Surely there had to be some simpler way to figure out what record type you are working with and use the correct copy book ahead of time, and just version the copy books.

  • (cs) in reply to Quango
    Quango:
    "...started back in the 1960s – long before anyone had heard of 3rd Normal Form... "

    Defined by Codd in 1971, so no they probably would not have heard of it. :)

    Like that matters. These people were like Mel: Even if they'd heard of it, they wouldn't have used it. It would have infringed on their freedom. "Besides, how would you optimize your data retrieval?"

    (I know: I were one.)

  • Jay (unregistered) in reply to C-Octothorpe
    C-Octothorpe:
    No, he went to work the following day with his favourite automatic weapon...

    That wouldn't have worked at my last company. They had an Official Company Policy that any employee who brought a gun to work was "subject to disciplinary action, including suspension or termination". Someone might come to work and start shooting everyone in sight when the penalty is just life in prison or being killed by the SWAT team when they arrive to stop him. But the prospect of being suspended for two weeks without pay -- who would dare? I could stand 30 years in prison as long as I knew that I could get my old job back when I got out, but wow ...

  • Jay (unregistered) in reply to steve
    steve:
    http://sourceforge.net/projects/cb2xml/

    there are many standard copybook translators

    In fairness, if the original poster's problem was that he couldn't get his translator to successfully translate a COBOL layout to a C struct, then one could fairly say that that isn't really that difficult a problem. Sure, maybe his first pass he forgot to handle OCCURS clauses or "V" in format specifiers or whatever, but you'd think with a few iterations he could get that worked out.

    But I presume he had to do some sort of processing. I mean, it's not enough to just have the C struct, you have to actually move the data across. That adds another level of complexity. Was it just a straight data move, copy "name" to "name", "account number" to "account number", etc? Or did he have to figure out record types, do data translations, etc.

  • (cs) in reply to realmerlyn
    realmerlyn:
    It could have just been a single line of Perl p̶r̶o̶g̶r̶a̶m̶.

    /me ducks

    FTFY

    /me ducks too.

  • Nagesh (unregistered) in reply to Jay
    Jay:
    C-Octothorpe:
    No, he went to work the following day with his favourite automatic weapon...

    That wouldn't have worked at my last company. They had an Official Company Policy that any employee who brought a gun to work was "subject to disciplinary action, including suspension or termination". Someone might come to work and start shooting everyone in sight when the penalty is just life in prison or being killed by the SWAT team when they arrive to stop him. But the prospect of being suspended for two weeks without pay -- who would dare? I could stand 30 years in prison as long as I knew that I could get my old job back when I got out, but wow ...

    Idiot. Ain't policy said about shooting: only about posession.

  • Nagesh (unregistered)

    Sounds like someone tried to parse a programming language by extrapolating from a single example rather than actually consulting the language specification. (Yes, even Cobol has specifications.)

    Serves them well, I say.

  • trtrwtf (unregistered) in reply to Jay
    Jay:
    C-Octothorpe:
    No, he went to work the following day with his favourite automatic weapon...

    That wouldn't have worked at my last company. They had an Official Company Policy that any employee who brought a gun to work was "subject to disciplinary action, including suspension or termination". Someone might come to work and start shooting everyone in sight when the penalty is just life in prison or being killed by the SWAT team when they arrive to stop him. But the prospect of being suspended for two weeks without pay -- who would dare? I could stand 30 years in prison as long as I knew that I could get my old job back when I got out, but wow ...

    I know, right? 'cause the only reason anyone would ever bring a gun to work would be to shoot the place up...

  • Sales Geek (unregistered) in reply to Nagesh

    Looks fine because it's a simple example. Wait until you see three pages of REDEFINE segments.

  • (cs)

    That sounds familiar.

    My first job was programming binary load lifters^H^H^H^H^H automated weather stations, each of which spit out a line of text which looked almost but not quite entirely unlike the report from any other weather station. I needed to identify all of the different variations of format and field placement, locate missing fields because some stations just didn't report everything all of the time, and somehow feed it all into a database so it could be used for weather simulations.

    It was something like getting reliable data from a GPS while someone kept unplugging it and connecting a different model every five seconds.

    Fortunately, I didn't have job security and stuck somebody else with the problem after only a few months.

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