The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2012-09-05 Reply Admin

Ahh.... Remy and his hidden HTML comments. Makes the article 1000% better.

odd thing is, I can't find his cornify script in the article, so it misses out on being, as Rainbow Dash would say, 20% cooler.

2012-09-05 Reply Admin

percise?

10 char

2012-09-05 Reply Admin

That song is now in MY head - sadly drilling my ears out won't help.

2012-09-05 Reply Admin

The WTF here is you published this. I mean, this is a perfectly cromulent reporting system. I implemented exactly this same process in three different companies. Where's the WTF?

2012-09-05 Reply Admin

Why doesn't the reporting system use PHP?

2012-09-05 Reply Admin

Dear God, I hope yesterday's plea to find writers had some decent submissions. Anybody who anchors an article around that crappy movie deserves to be shot.

Yaos · 2012-09-05 Reply Admin

I only use reporting systems that use at least 10 different languages, 15 different databases and 20 fake databases. You also need a few hardware dongles and beige "servers" hanging around in the racks or I won't touch it.

QJo · 2012-09-05 Reply Admin

So the real WTF is that the writer forgot to mention that the fan-feed paper had to be spread out on a wooden table and photographed in order to turn it into a PDF?

2012-09-05 Reply Admin

TRWTF is Titanic, apparently...

...Long list of silly hand-offs aside...

CAPTCHA: uxor - An ancient Egyptian City founded before the discovery of the letter L.

2012-09-05 Reply Admin

So? Some colleague from university did essentially the same. A paper mill wanted a new version of their controlling software, but was afraid to introduce bugs and change the way it calculated (which seems to be a pretty tricky process, getting temperatures right and whatnot), so in the end he ended up wrapping the original FORTRAN simulation in some fresh GUI so it was easier to use (yes, the original UI was really flaky, essentially burning you for every even slightly wrong input) and everybody was happy.

2012-09-05 Reply Admin

Yeah I was pretty sure the new system was just going to web-wrap a bunch of calls out to the old, now rehosted, COBOL code. That's the only way to preserve bug-for-bug compatibility.

Besides, that's how you did it back in the last millennium.

Quietust · 2012-09-05 Reply Admin

insourced:
That song is now in MY head - sadly drilling my ears out won't help.

If you have to have the song stuck in your head, this version is at least better than the original.

2012-09-05 Reply Admin

Accalia.de.Elementia:
Ahh.... Remy and his hidden HTML comments. Makes the article 1000% better.
odd thing is, I can't find his cornify script in the article, so it misses out on being, as Rainbow Dash would say, 20% cooler.

I wonder if anyone made some kind of tool, which would automatically display the commented content. It would be quite easy in let`s say PHP+regexp :)

2012-09-05 Reply Admin

Joe:
Yeah I was pretty sure the new system was just going to web-wrap a bunch of calls out to the old, now rehosted, COBOL code. That's the only way to preserve bug-for-bug compatibility.
Besides, that's how you did it back in the last millennium.

Last millennium? That's how PeopleShaft does it today!

Except, thanks to AJAX and do.postback and a bunch of other bloatware we can now force your page to reload (6-10 seconds) every time you change focus from one field to the next.

Barf.

Boiled barf with Tabasco sauce.

Deep fried barf with infectious slime sauce and a rat tail garnish.

2012-09-05 Reply Admin

THEY'VE GONE THE PLAID!!!!!

2012-09-05 Reply Admin

Ha, Zork reference FTW.

2012-09-05 Reply Admin

an excuse to avoid seeing Titanic with his girlfriend for the third time.
...

Matt’s wife wanted to see the 15th anniversary, 3D re-release of Titanic.

Yeah, um, after 15 years, there's no way his female is still making it worth his while -- if you know what I mean. Hopefully he upgraded to a newer model, one who was too young to see the original due to the PG rating.

Lockwood · 2012-09-05 Reply Admin

Accalia.de.Elementia:
Ahh.... Remy and his hidden HTML comments. Makes the article 1000% better.
odd thing is, I can't find his cornify script in the article, so it misses out on being, as Rainbow Dash would say, 20% cooler.

Line 154, the second FORTRAN in "The process started, not in COBOL, but in a FORTRAN program running on a VAX/VMS system. The user requested a report, and the FORTRAN program called out to a remote Java application."

I found that in ten seconds flat.

Remy Porter · 2012-09-05 Reply Admin

In his defense, it wasn't there when he was looking for it initially. I'm trying a new tool for writing articles, and it apparently eats script tags.

2012-09-05 Reply Admin

Remy Porter:
I'm ... a ... tool for writing articles

Self awareness is the first step, Remy. I'm proud of your courage. You'll find nothing but support and unconditional love here.

Seriously, who needs "a tool" to write HTML? It's about the simplest computer language I've ever seen.

vi for the win. Or cat, if you never make typos.

Remy Porter · 2012-09-05 Reply Admin

I'm developing a Markdown habit. It has the advantage of generating both readable plaintext and easily converting to HTML. Since I do most of my writing using Simplenote (which also has a Markdown preview), it's really convenient for me.

QJo · 2012-09-05 Reply Admin

Patrick:
Remy Porter:
I'm ... a ... tool for writing articles
Self awareness is the first step, Remy. I'm proud of your courage. You'll find nothing but support and unconditional love here.
Seriously, who needs "a tool" to write HTML? It's about the simplest computer language I've ever seen.

vi for the win. Or cat, if you never make typos.

At risk of "YHBT", it's in general quicker to invoke a tool function to add HTML tags around something you're typing than pressing (for example) shift-comma, tr, shift-period, (lots of stuff including several instances of shift-comma, td, shift-period, stuff, shift-comma, /td, shift-period), shift-comma, /tr, shift-period ...

It's not only the language's complexity and difficulty-to-learn that makes a writing helper worthwhile: it's also the sheer tedium of writing all the tags out longhand. A set of macros to ease the irritation of typing out frequently-used commands is, at the very least, what sensible code writers use.

2012-09-05 Reply Admin

I swear, by the moon and the stars and the sun, I won't be there to support that one.

2012-09-05 Reply Admin

Lockwood:
Accalia.de.Elementia:
Ahh.... Remy and his hidden HTML comments. Makes the article 1000% better.
odd thing is, I can't find his cornify script in the article, so it misses out on being, as Rainbow Dash would say, 20% cooler.

Line 154, the second FORTRAN in "The process started, not in COBOL, but in a FORTRAN program running on a VAX/VMS system. The user requested a report, and the FORTRAN program called out to a remote Java application."

I found that in ten seconds flat.

Goodness, you are right! I was sure it wasn't there earlier.

So either I'm blind and missed it, or Remy was sneaky and added it after reading my comment and realizing he forgot it.

I wonder how we could prove this one way or the other...

2012-09-05 Reply Admin

Funny how "legacy" COBOL systems have outlasted "modern" SQL database + Java front end....maybe that's the real WTF here?

Remy Porter · 2012-09-05 Reply Admin

You could read the comment thread and see my explanation. ;)

2012-09-05 Reply Admin

Accalia.de.Elementia:
Lockwood:
Accalia.de.Elementia:
Ahh.... Remy and his hidden HTML comments. Makes the article 1000% better.
odd thing is, I can't find his cornify script in the article, so it misses out on being, as Rainbow Dash would say, 20% cooler.

Line 154, the second FORTRAN in "The process started, not in COBOL, but in a FORTRAN program running on a VAX/VMS system. The user requested a report, and the FORTRAN program called out to a remote Java application."

I found that in ten seconds flat.

Goodness, you are right! I was sure it wasn't there earlier.

So either I'm blind and missed it, or Remy was sneaky and added it after reading my comment and realizing he forgot it.

I wonder how we could prove this one way or the other...

Like the comment by Remy saying that he added it later?

In his defense, it wasn't there when he was looking for it initially. I'm trying a new tool for writing articles, and it apparently eats script tags.

Cbuttius · 2012-09-05 Reply Admin

Java front end seemed a lovely idea at the time as you could run it in a browser, until they discovered that, if you let Java applets run from your browser, you may stumble across a webpage with a Java applet that had a virus or phishing - a rather big security hole.

Of course, Java was created by Sun Microsystems in an attempt to do battle with Microsoft.

Lockwood · 2012-09-05 Reply Admin

Remy Porter:
In his defense, it wasn't there when he was looking for it initially. I'm trying a new tool for writing articles, and it apparently eats script tags.

Thought it was probably something along those lines, but I couldn't resist throwing the ten seconds flat line in there!

2012-09-05 Reply Admin

Along one wall are three buttons which are, respectively, round, triangular, and square.

What, no "X" button? Then how am I going to play PS2 games on PCSX2?

Mercifully, I have no clue what song Remy is referring to. And I'm early Generation X. So it's got to be either from the '60s or the '90s.

emurphy · 2012-09-05 Reply Admin

Gandor:
Accalia.de.Elementia:
Ahh.... Remy and his hidden HTML comments. Makes the article 1000% better.
odd thing is, I can't find his cornify script in the article, so it misses out on being, as Rainbow Dash would say, 20% cooler.
I wonder if anyone made some kind of tool, which would automatically display the commented content. It would be quite easy in let`s say PHP+regexp :)

javascript:(function(){document.getElementsByClassName("ArticleBody")[0].innerHTML=document.getElementsByClassName("ArticleBody")[0].innerHTML.replace(//g,"")}())

Only works on the "full article" version, though, not either of the "with comments" versions. Someone with actual DOM-fu can no doubt fix it up easily enough.

Cratig · 2012-09-05 Reply Admin

Off the top of my head (not actually tested) wouldn't this work?

javascript:(function(){document.innerHTML.replace(//g,"")}())

Shouldn't matter which page you're on, if comments are in the source, they'll show

Addendum (2012-09-05 10:48): Removed - code was no-where-near what is needed!

Lockwood · 2012-09-05 Reply Admin

Dumb question, where do you put that to work?

2012-09-05 Reply Admin

Zog:
Funny how "legacy" COBOL systems have outlasted "modern" SQL database + Java front end....maybe that's the real WTF here?

One of the ongoing background tasks at my previous job was converting the database back into a relational schema from some object-database system, so I wouldn't say SQL is gone just yet.

emurphy · 2012-09-05 Reply Admin

Lockwood:
Dumb question, where do you put that to work?

In the URL field of a bookmark.

2012-09-05 Reply Admin

@MightyM: Yeah. That would do it. glad to know I wasn't going crazy.

I also should register as Remy posted his response after i started writing mine, so i didn't see it until it was too late to edit.

2012-09-05 Reply Admin

and the longer hours gave him an excuse to avoid seeing Titanic with his girlfriend for the third time.

TRWTF is having a girlfriend that you have to find excuses to avoid. Seriously.

Lockwood · 2012-09-05 Reply Admin

Thanks!

Naughty Akismet.

2012-09-05 Reply Admin

As a VMS support person (aka Extinct Dinosaur), originally trained in COBOL and PL/1 I can say I still believe the VMS operating system to be the absolute, bar none, best OS in existence. Having worked with it since 1983, I have yet to see a “blue screen” or any other kind of screen that indicated that something has gone terribly wrong. The system just does not crash and is reliable beyond description.

Remy Porter · 2012-09-05 Reply Admin

It also has one of the most interesting filesystem designs I've ever seen.

Lockwood · 2012-09-05 Reply Admin

Since copy and paste is magic, I've shamelessly ripped off- I've made derivative work of emurphy's code:

javascript:(function(){document.getElementsByClassName("ArticleBody")[0].innerHTML=document.getElementsByClassName("ArticleBody")[0].innerHTML.replace("<span%20onclick=","<span%20style="color:%20blue;"%20onclick=")}())

2012-09-05 Reply Admin

TFA:
"Matt trailed off; his boss had vanished the instant he heard, “Yeah”."

Reminds me of a classic WTF here. A new cow-orker had just finished the alpha version of a new web app. He sent an e-mail to the Marketing Director saying:

The new web app is ready for testing.  
I have installed it on the internal test server. 
Cue massive scramble to deploy... 
Please have your people test it and let me know 
of any bugs they find.

About 30 mins later we were inundated from calls from Customer Service about customers complaining they couldn't find the app.

Turned out the Marketing Director had read as far as "The new web app is ready", not read any further, and promptly announced the great new service to the world on Twitter and Facebook.

2012-09-05 Reply Admin

Apparently I'm TRWTF here...

Ozz:
TFA:
"Matt trailed off; his boss had vanished the instant he heard, “Yeah”."
Reminds me of a classic WTF here. A new cow-orker had just finished the alpha version of a new web app. He sent an e-mail to the Marketing Director saying:
The new web app is ready for testing.  
I have installed it on the internal test server. 
Please have your people test it and let me know 
of any bugs they find.
About 30 mins later we were inundated from calls from Customer Service about customers complaining they couldn't find the app.
Turned out the Marketing Director had read as far as "The new web app is ready", not read any further, and promptly announced the great new service to the world on Twitter and Facebook. Cue massive scramble to deploy...

FTFM

Zylon · 2012-09-05 Reply Admin

The contract that wanted a mainframe programmer with SNOBOL experience was well on its way, like an ocean liner crossing the North Atlantic. The customer had already converted most of its legacy software into an ocean liner with a North Atlantic front-end. By 1997 standards, it was so cutting edge that it could slice through an iceberg, like an ocean liner crossing the North Atlantic. It even had a North Atlantic interface, which was a big deal for a customer that didn’t deploy icerbergs to their ocean liners.

Fixed.

2012-09-05 Reply Admin

Epic HTML comments, Remy!

2012-09-05 Reply Admin

QJo:
it's in general quicker to invoke a tool function to add HTML tags around something you're typing than pressing (for example) shift-comma, tr, shift-period, (lots of stuff including several instances of shift-comma, td, shift-period, stuff, shift-comma, /td, shift-period), shift-comma, /tr, shift-period

HTML is like COBOL (to keep on today's topic) -- you only do the tedium once. After that, is yyp so hard to type?

2012-09-05 Reply Admin

THANK-YOU for telling me about those. I had no idea those HTML comments were there (since I don't make a habit of reading website source... too many WTF making my eyes bleed). You folks have just doubled the humor I get out of these articles.

CAPTCHA: commoveo commoveo here and read these comments.

2012-09-05 Reply Admin

Chris A:
Zog:
Funny how "legacy" COBOL systems have outlasted "modern" SQL database + Java front end....maybe that's the real WTF here?
One of the ongoing background tasks at my previous job was converting the database back into a relational schema from some object-database system, so I wouldn't say SQL is gone just yet.

Yeah, I think that will be my next big project. The "developers" just spent two years wedging a data centered app into a content management system that has "evolved beyond" the "rigidity" of relational data structures and just dumps everything randomly into an "object store". So much work for what is really not much more than three tables and two foreign key constraints.

Oh and they spent a lot of time making sure the "theme" had buttons with round corners and the proper shading -- but forgot that numbers sometimes get bigger than "9" and therefore won't fit on top of the button. (Existing data has 100,000 rows. "Developers" tested with 8 rows.)

2012-09-05 Reply Admin

Captcha:suscipit:
and the longer hours gave him an excuse to avoid seeing Titanic with his girlfriend for the third time.
TRWTF is having a girlfriend that you have to find excuses to avoid. Seriously.

TRWTF is having a girlfriend who wants to spend 3 hours in a movie instead of doing, well, what girlfriends are for.

2012-09-05 Reply Admin

Gandor:
Accalia.de.Elementia:
Ahh.... Remy and his hidden HTML comments. Makes the article 1000% better.
odd thing is, I can't find his cornify script in the article, so it misses out on being, as Rainbow Dash would say, 20% cooler.
I wonder if anyone made some kind of tool, which would automatically display the commented content. It would be quite easy in let`s say PHP+regexp :)

Actually wrote this a few days ago (got tired of view-sourcing). Greasemonkey user script, wrote it for Chrome but should work in FF. Works almost identically to the other snippets posted (great minds think alike, I guess), but since it is a userscript it'll run automatically and you won't have to click the bookmarklet to see the comments. Put it in a text file named wtf.user.js and drag it on to the Chrome extensions page to install.

Also just added a highlight for the cornify spans (thanks for the idea Lockwood). Any span within Article Body will be highlighted blue.

// ==UserScript== // @name DailyWTF Show Comments // @description Show the hidden comments of the article as part of the visible body rather than having to View Source // @namespace anthonymaciel.com // @include http://thedailywtf.com/* // @version 0.0.1 // @contributor Anthony Maciel // ==/UserScript==

(function() { var e=document.querySelector('.ArticleBody'); e.innerHTML = e.innerHTML.replace(//g, ' ');

document.querySelector('.ArticleBody span[onclick]').style.color = 'blue';

})();

The Reporting System

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