The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

Iago · 2009-06-23 Reply Admin

Kazan:
properly written and optimized OOP code is no slower or faster than properly written and optimized procedural code in the same language.

The problem is that most code is not properly written.

Badly-written OOP code tends towards the ugliest end of architectural astronomy: you have AbstractVisitorFactoryWrapperPools and the like, labyrinths of classes wrapped in objects wrapped in abstractions. Thousands of objects being allocated only to be immediately discarded,* every method call going through at least five layers of virtual methods and wrapper methods before it finally reaches some code that does something. It's slow.

Badly-written procedural code is faster. I'm not saying it's better -- spaghetti is unmaintainable in any language or paradigm -- but it tends to be faster. Sure, it's full of random loops and tortuous pointer arithmetic and typecasts and bugs and bears, oh my, and it's horrible to work with, but in general, it is faster.

Yeah, I know, this is "fast" if you have a "good" GC. It's still slow in practice.

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

MadtM:
Yeah? Try running a restaurant.

Oh, trust me - there's plenty of restaurants out there that are only open because the health inspector hasn't come to visit yet. What you see in the dining area has no bearing on what's going on in the kitchen.

Be afraid.

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

A Gould:
MadtM:
Yeah? Try running a restaurant.

Oh, trust me - there's plenty of restaurants out there that are only open because the health inspector hasn't come to visit yet. What you see in the dining area has no bearing on what's going on in the kitchen.

Be afraid.

I think the point was that the large majority of restaurants fail to make a profit and go out of business. Usually within a year.

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

Schnapple:
Not my story but my favorite Slashdot comment ever
Contracting Insanity:

There is no Illuminati. There are no runners from the Illuminati. I was never approached by people who wanted to create a secure network for people who were on the run from the Illuminati to communicate with each other over.

I think what he really meant was: "There is fnord no Illuminati. There fnord are no runners fnord from the Illuminati fnord. I was fnord never approached by people fnord who wanted to create fnord a secure network fnord for people who fnord were on the run from the fnord Illuminati to fnord communicate with each other fnord over."

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

Shame on you Alex. The girl ran off from an Austrian company and you didn't make her part with an "I'll be back."

RogerC · 2009-06-23 Reply Admin

From the article:
“Whooooa there,” Phil stooped me, “we don’t do oop here.”

And so, among the other silly things that Phil did, he contradicted himself all in a single sentence by using the OO-form of "stop" to interrupt Drew.

Smash King · 2009-06-23 Reply Admin

Marvin the Martian:
Who would want to work in a DOOM level? Thousands of geeks that came of age in the mid-nineties, that's who!

"I'll work for you, but only if I can use IDDQD and IDKFA. Oh, and IDDT too, because I always thought it would be cool to become immaterial whenever I want to."

Scary part: I didn't look the codes up. I still remember them

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

IDDT was to reveal map and second time to reveal where are monsters.

I think you're referring to IDCLIP...

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

Code Dependent:
Towel on chair == incontinent. Eewww.

Not incontinent, just moist.

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

Rudy:
Fregas:
OOP is so overrated anyway:
http://www.geocities.com/tablizer/oopbad.htm
I'm not agreeing with everything Mr. Oopbad has to say, but in 1981 I could type as fast as I wanted and even if the computer fell behind it would eventually catch up without losing a single keystroke. Now I find myself waiting for windows to gain focus and repaint, waiting for text boxes to get an active cursor, and interrupted by annoying pop-ups. This is not now and then. This is constantly, all day.

Even though the hardware is about a billion times faster, the software has made things slower. I spend a lot more time waiting on my computer than I used to.

What does this have to do with OOP?
DNFTT

Code Dependent · 2009-06-23 Reply Admin

squeem:
Code Dependent:
Towel on chair == incontinent. Eewww.
Not incontinent, just moist.

Good point! ...assuming we're still talking about the wife...

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

I answered an add on the mailing list of a local small technology business mailing list for a CIO. After following up on my resume with a phone call he said he'd like to talk to me in person, but since he didn't have an office we should meet at a coffee shop near one of the local universities. In the interview, along with talking about what he wanted to build, he managed to claim to be (at various times), a Meteorologist, an Engineer (not computers), a medical doctor, the head of an HMO, and a consultant who had worked in Zimbabwe, Mexico, and Switzerland, and that he lived part of the year in Bali.

The shining lights of the interview were that I would have final say on technology and the magical "investors".

A month later we were still talking (he'd been out of town), but suddenly there were questions about whether the investment money was going to come through or not, it was already overdue apparently.

It wasn't until out third meeting that he actually repeated a story about his life.

I took the job... damned if everything he had said wasn't true. And when the investors tried to ask for better terms he ran em off and self-funded.

Best decision I ever made.

To be fair, I might not have gone that far if I hadn't realized after our first interview that I'd actually met him before at a networking event (for the same organization whose mailing list he had posted on) several years prior where he had described the project that he was doing preliminary work on.

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

frieddan:
I answered an add on the mailing list of a local small technology business mailing list for a CIO. ....

Oops, should have been in response to

Seriously:
OK, has anyone ever done one of those interviews where you get a feeling right away that there is no way in hell I would ever want to work here, but you end up taking the job and liking it? If so, please tell us all about it.
Otherwise, when your instincts say run... run!

Smash King · 2009-06-23 Reply Admin

whoops. My bad. But OTOH, that is clearly proof that I didn't look them up.

"Hey, I thought it through and decided I don't need IDDT anymore, because I can use google maps or my GPS. I wanna have IDCLIP instead."

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

Tim:
Am I the only one who read the Doomed story and wondered who the hell Tim was? You have an introduction to a managing director, who during a tour, "Bob appeared". And then goes on to describing Tim, and Bob, with an interview that starts with small talk (neither of whom were proficient in)....
Could this story have gone through the "Re-write to make it a little more fluid, less dramatic but sounding better" machine?

Ah, I wondered the exact same thing - who this mysterious Tim was and when he would start shooting fireballs.

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

Smash King:
Marvin the Martian:
Who would want to work in a DOOM level? Thousands of geeks that came of age in the mid-nineties, that's who!
"I'll work for you, but only if I can use IDDQD and IDKFA. Oh, and IDDT too, because I always thought it would be cool to become immaterial whenever I want to."
Scary part: I didn't look the codes up. I still remember them

Is that scary? Why? I remember lots of cheatcodes from way back. ;) I also even remember a savecode for an ancient NES game. >.< Thats borderline scary though.

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

I went for an interview for a Windows admin position, and at the time I had 10 years experience with networks and Windows. After meeting the three members of the interview panel, I had the oddest experience I've ever had in an interview. For some reason, my mind just -blanked-. One of the interviewers seemed outright hostile, and my reaction was "this isn't going to work out". I tried to answer their questions, but it was hopeless. I got up and left.

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

delenit:
Smash King:
Marvin the Martian:
Who would want to work in a DOOM level? Thousands of geeks that came of age in the mid-nineties, that's who!
"I'll work for you, but only if I can use IDDQD and IDKFA. Oh, and IDDT too, because I always thought it would be cool to become immaterial whenever I want to."
Scary part: I didn't look the codes up. I still remember them

Is that scary? Why? I remember lots of cheatcodes from way back. ;) I also even remember a savecode for an ancient NES game. >.< Thats borderline scary though.

fluxcapacitoristhepower?

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

ObiWayneKenobi:
The sad truth is that all it takes to run a business is to be a good bullshitter and have enough money to keep minor overhead - nothing else even remotely matters like having a good product, paying for good equipment or paying people a decent wage.
Seriously, you have no idea the number of small-time idiots I've seen that shouldn't stay in business yet do, and manage to turn a hefty profit despite cutting all kinds of corners and not even understanding WTF their business is.

I find it very ironic that scam artists stay in business and are successful while honest people routinely end up desperate for income.

You sir live in an alternate reality. Scummy businesses don't last very long. Ff they do last, they certainly don't thrive. And it DOES take a lot of hard work to build up a successful business.

There are always exceptions. They don't disprove the rule.

My question is, have you ever started a business of your own? You sound like an arm-chair quarterback.

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

ObiWayneKenobi:
MadtM:
Yeah? Try running a restaurant.

A restaurant is a different story since yes, it requires a certain level of decency or it can be shut down due to health regulations, but haven't you ever seen Kitchen Nightmares? There are a lot of restauranteurs out there who have no idea how to run a restaurant, either.

This is very true, oh Wise OWK. But many, faced with competition, also close for that reason. And because there is no government bailout. BTW, I love Kitchen Nightmares.

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

delenit:
Is that scary? Why? I remember lots of cheatcodes from way back. ;) I also even remember a savecode for an ancient NES game. >.< Thats borderline scary though.

007-373-5963? JUSTINBAILEY------------?

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

Fregas:
OOP is so overrated anyway:
http://www.geocities.com/tablizer/oopbad.htm

The real WTF is that someone is still using GeoCities and expects people to take him seriously. Personally I think that object oriented programming has its place, and so do other methodologies, and they can co-exist.

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

I am going through resumes to interview for a dev position where I work, and recently got a little gem of a resume, though I suspect this is far from the norm - it's just the first that I've received: The cumulative education and experience of the applicant is as follows (cut'n paste cause I am certain that the applicant doesn't visit thedailywtf)

Forklift Operator 2007

Obtained certificate in the safe operation of forklifts Red Cross 2007
Current Standard First Aid

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

The interview started with awkward small talk – they didn’t like sports, they didn’t know what the weather was like, and they had no plans for the upcoming summer months – which lead into a rather long moment of uncomfortable silence.

And that is why he failed. Real developers often don't even know what day of the week it is. Questions like "how are you?" are difficult if not impossible to answer. "All systems nominal" would be perfectly correct, but socially unacceptable.

The weather is always a somewhat dry 68F, sports would be so much easier if both teams would cooperate, and ultimately is a modern substitute for tribal warfare. Cheering for something remotely without having even a remote chance of influence on the process is similar to shouting in elation every time the second hand passes through 5 on a clock. And since every day is exactly the same, there are no summer plans.

So no, the interviewee was quickly forgotten. And if you aren't making a mess, you aren't accomplishing anything.

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

Anon:
I am going through resumes to interview for a dev position where I work, and recently got a little gem of a resume, though I suspect this is far from the norm - it's just the first that I've received: The cumulative education and experience of the applicant is as follows (cut'n paste cause I am certain that the applicant doesn't visit thedailywtf)
Forklift Operator 2007

Obtained certificate in the safe operation of forklifts Red Cross 2007

Current Standard First Aid

So what you are saying is I didn't get the job?

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

Who the hell is Tim? You know there is a problem when you have to stop and re-read the damn article multiple times just to follow along. The tim walked in and shat on the floor.

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

MadtM:
ObiWayneKenobi:
MadtM:
Yeah? Try running a restaurant.

A restaurant is a different story since yes, it requires a certain level of decency or it can be shut down due to health regulations, but haven't you ever seen Kitchen Nightmares? There are a lot of restauranteurs out there who have no idea how to run a restaurant, either.

This is very true, oh Wise OWK. But many, faced with competition, also close for that reason. And because there is no government bailout. BTW, I love Kitchen Nightmares.

The entire point to Kitchen Nightmares is that if they don't change they way they do business, they aren't going to be in business long (and many of them aren't, if you watch the follow up).

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

kmarsh:
I would comment, but it's just too windy right now.

Against my better judgement, I'm making a comment because it's too windy to get to work.

Vechni · 2009-06-23 Reply Admin

joelkatz:
I once lost a job (long story) and decided to look in the newspaper just on the off chance I could find something awesome. I found a company with a really cool name and called to see if I could get an interview. The guy asked me to come over immediately if I could, so I did.
It was a house. I walked up to the door and it was slightly opened. I said "hello" and a deep voice boomed "come on in". I did, and followed the voice to a dirty, dark office. At a computer sat a rather large man who was almost naked, sitting on a chair covered with a towel.

He invited me to sit down on the chair across from him (also at a computer, but it was facing towards him instead), also covered with a towel. After I did, he volunteered that the towels are there because he and his wife frequently work naked.

I thanked him, left, went home, took a shower, and started a proper job search. No ... just kidding. I took the job on the condition I could work from home. It lasted about 11 days. Worst job I ever had.

obviously... whenever people talk on the phone they always imagine the person on the other end based on past experiences... so if you never have to see him, you still sort of have to.

Code Dependent · 2009-06-23 Reply Admin

IT Girl:
kmarsh:
I would comment, but it's just too windy right now.
Against my better judgement, I'm making a comment because it's too windy to get to work.

I went into the men's room to wash my face, but it was too windy in there.

Kazan · 2009-06-23 Reply Admin

Iago:
Kazan:
properly written and optimized OOP code is no slower or faster than properly written and optimized procedural code in the same language.
The problem is that most code is not properly written.
Badly-written OOP code tends towards the ugliest end of architectural astronomy: you have AbstractVisitorFactoryWrapperPools and the like, labyrinths of classes wrapped in objects wrapped in abstractions. Thousands of objects being allocated only to be immediately discarded,* every method call going through at least five layers of virtual methods and wrapper methods before it finally reaches some code that does something. It's slow.

Badly-written procedural code is faster. I'm not saying it's better -- spaghetti is unmaintainable in any language or paradigm -- but it tends to be faster. Sure, it's full of random loops and tortuous pointer arithmetic and typecasts and bugs and bears, oh my, and it's horrible to work with, but in general, it is faster.

Yeah, I know, this is "fast" if you have a "good" GC. It's still slow in practice.

just a small nitpick on virtual methods.

if you have a pure virtual base class that defines some functions.. and then you're working with the great-great-great-great grandchild of that PVBC. you're not interfacing with the virtual functions in the generations of classes between them. it goes straight to the GGGG GC's implementation.

The virtual function table is pretty slick that way.

but yes.. otherwise you're describing an antipattern I have to deal with everyday: the YoYo*

which is only an antipattern when DOCUMENTATION IS MISSING

PS: OOP and pointer arithmetic are not incompatable... plus pointer arithmetic isn't painful. I don't understand how people have problems with pointer arithmetic. it's pretty straight forward.

tOmcOlins · 2009-06-23 Reply Admin

OOP THERE IT IS

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

tOmcOlins:
OOP THERE IT IS

public class Oop { public static void main(String[] args) { System.out.println("It's here!"); } }

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

Code Dependent:
Tim:
Am I the only one who read the Doomed story and wondered who the hell Tim was? You have an introduction to a managing director, who during a tour, "Bob appeared". And then goes on to describing Tim, and Bob, with an interview that starts with small talk (neither of whom were proficient in)...
Tim was inadvertently from the following line:
The atmosphere of silence and despair was overpowering, and no-one seemed to be around. That is, until and Bob appeared.

It's deeper than that:

TarquinWJ:
You would have made a complete sentence, but the wind kept blowing your fingers off the keyboard?

Tim is the Missing.

"The my friend, is blowing in the. Answer, young Jedi, in the blowing is."

I understand that this is easily implemented in small talk. Just so long as you avoid the Britney Spears clause, "oop, I lost my."

Anyhow, can you seriously imagine a world where somebody called "Tim Dylan" exists?

Or, to quote Andy Garfunkel:

"Deep in the sound ... of Despair Was Overpowering."

I seem to recall that this is when a young Dustin Hoffman takes a suicide leap off of the ten metre board and honks the plastic aquabot up his schnozzle.

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

Tim:
Am I the only one who read the Doomed story and wondered who the hell Tim was? You have an introduction to a managing director, who during a tour, "Bob appeared". And then goes on to describing Tim, and Bob, with an interview that starts with small talk (neither of whom were proficient in)....
Could this story have gone through the "Re-write to make it a little more fluid, less dramatic but sounding better" machine?

Me!!!

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

I turned up at one interview to be told that they would be running me through a few aptitude tests and "it shouldn't take longer than 8 to 10 hours to complete".

When I replied "you must be f****ng joking", they seemed hurt and bemused. I ran.

I wouldn't mind, but it was only for a junior position in a small 20 person company doing insurance software.

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

Just ask yourself, what would and Megan Fox do in a situation like this?

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

Bim Job:
Code Dependent:
Tim:
Am I the only one who read the Doomed story and wondered who the hell Tim was? You have an introduction to a managing director, who during a tour, "Bob appeared". And then goes on to describing Tim, and Bob, with an interview that starts with small talk (neither of whom were proficient in)...
Tim was inadvertently from the following line:
The atmosphere of silence and despair was overpowering, and no-one seemed to be around. That is, until and Bob appeared.
It's deeper than that:
TarquinWJ:
You would have made a complete sentence, but the wind kept blowing your fingers off the keyboard?
Tim is the Missing.
"The my friend, is blowing in the. Answer, young Jedi, in the blowing is."

I understand that this is easily implemented in small talk. Just so long as you avoid the Britney Spears clause, "oop, I lost my."

Anyhow, can you seriously imagine a world where somebody called "Tim Dylan" exists?

Or, to quote Andy Garfunkel:

"Deep in the sound ... of Despair Was Overpowering."

I seem to recall that this is when a young Dustin Hoffman takes a suicide leap off of the ten metre board and honks the plastic aquabot up his schnozzle.

SpectateSwamp? no, couldn't be... for the catchphrase is missing....

Code Dependent · 2009-06-23 Reply Admin

Bim Job:
It's deeper than that: "The my friend, is blowing in the. Answer, young Jedi, in the blowing is."
I understand that this is easily implemented in small talk. Just so long as you avoid the Britney Spears clause, "oop, I lost my."

Anyhow, can you seriously imagine a world where somebody called "Tim Dylan" exists?

Or, to quote Andy Garfunkel:

"Deep in the sound ... of Despair Was Overpowering."

I seem to recall that this is when a young Dustin Hoffman takes a suicide leap off of the ten metre board and honks the plastic aquabot up his schnozzle.

Well, don't stop now:

Kenneth Grahame: The in the Willows Donovan: "Might as well try and catch the" Marshall Tucker Band: "Runnin' Like the" Gogi Grant: "The next of kin to the wayward" Dylan/Hendrix: "And the began to howl"

Relax and un.

Oh, windy saints go marchin' in...

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

hail:
SpectateSwamp? no, couldn't be... for the catchphrase is missing....

What the fuck would I be doing with a catch-phrase? Just look at the name.

What does not kill us, makes us stumble around with a lump on our head, wondering why God chose to give us a particularly painful hangover.

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

jammy:
I remember when I was looking evernwhere for an interivew. Good job I met and Bob.

I always thought "A Bob for a job" meant something, um, different

Code Dependent · 2009-06-23 Reply Admin

Bim Job:
What does not kill us, makes us stumble around with a lump on our head

How many of you are sharing that head?

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

Code Dependent:
Well, don't stop now:
Kenneth Grahame: The in the Willows Donovan: "Might as well try and catch the" Marshall Tucker Band: "Runnin' Like the" Gogi Grant: "The next of kin to the wayward" Dylan/Hendrix: "And the began to howl"

Relax and un.

Oh, windy saints go marchin' in...

What, all this atmospherics and no CCR?

Let a little rain into your soul, man.

However, I believe the lyrics you yearn for are:

"Windy Red Red Robin comes Tim Tim Timming Along..." It gets round to throbbing at some point, but I think it's wise to leave it at that.

Quite appropriate, really.

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

Code Dependent:
Bim Job:
What does not kill us, makes us stumble around with a lump on our head
How many of you are sharing that head?

About three at the last count. But don't worry. It's multi-core.

j0k3r · 2009-06-23 Reply Admin

@Deprecated:
Seriously, I would have told Ray that "OOP is the underlying core technology to ASP.NET, and Phil is a primadonna idiot", and then walked out. Or something to that effect.
Even better if Phil is still in the room.

Really...OOP is a "core technology"? I would have walked you out if you told me OOP is a "core technology".

Frankly, all of these stories suck. The first is just a bad pun. The second one goes nowhere and the grammar makes it almost unreadable. The third one is about a guy who let an arrogant ass walk all over him (Good on ya Drew!).

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

blah:
Shame on you Alex. The girl ran off from an Austrian company and you didn't make her part with an "I'll be back."

She was scared of the Dingos...

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

evilspoons:
Code Dependent:
Jeff:
Did you at least stick around long enough to check out his wife? I mean, umm...
Towel on chair == incontinent. Eewww.

Or excessively hairy.

Thanks so much for putting that image in my head. I think I just lost the will to live.

Leak · 2009-06-23 Reply Admin

Yeah, well - I guess the last company going teets-oop was divine retribution, then? ducks

Also, I really, really doubt the first story - if that bit of wind is a problem you can't be Austrian. It's currently pouring outside AND totally windy...

np: Aesop Rock - Coffee (with John Darnielle) (None Shall Pass)

2009-06-23 Reply Admin

Matt:
ObiWayneKenobi:
The sad truth is that all it takes to run a business is to be a good bullshitter and have enough money to keep minor overhead - nothing else even remotely matters like having a good product, paying for good equipment or paying people a decent wage.
Seriously, you have no idea the number of small-time idiots I've seen that shouldn't stay in business yet do, and manage to turn a hefty profit despite cutting all kinds of corners and not even understanding WTF their business is.

I find it very ironic that scam artists stay in business and are successful while honest people routinely end up desperate for income.

You sir live in an alternate reality. Scummy businesses don't last very long. Ff they do last, they certainly don't thrive. And it DOES take a lot of hard work to build up a successful business.

There are always exceptions. They don't disprove the rule.

My question is, have you ever started a business of your own? You sound like an arm-chair quarterback.

Just waiting for 10 people to respond to those millions of emails I sent out....

Code Dependent · 2009-06-23 Reply Admin

Bim Job:
Let a little rain into your soul, man.

If it keeps on rainin', levees goin' to break Windy levee breaks I'll have no place to stay

The Winds of Recession, A Doomed Interivew, and Oops!

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