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Admin
Uuuhhh.... this was one mother of a WTF. The ground beneath me is actually trembling right now.
Admin
How are those applicable as interview questions? What codebase/project would you be talking about that both parties know intimately enough to answer meaningfully / judge the answer?
Admin
It would be fairly easy to at least weed out the blithely idiotic responses like, "Oh, we're thinking of replacing our RDBMS with XML".
Admin
You mean like this?
Admin
Normally I'm one of those people that complains about spelling errors...but this one would be excusable:
"Instead, modules were decompiled on a "need-to-altar" basis..."
It even makes more sense than the correct spelling!
Admin
Huh, my sanity shield must have auto-blocked that. Now I'll have the giggles for the rest of the day.
Admin
No no... your analogy fails. You don't throw away keys when you get the car started. They are keys. Keys need to be in locks. You keep the keys in the lock so you shall be able to start the car again.
And what comes to source code... of course you throw it away. Once the software is ready, you don't need the sourcecode anymore - you already have the product. Honestly, you don't see any big companies having sources, do you - all you ever see is products. If those products have bugs, they issue fixes. No need for sourcecode...
Oh... wait... it seems like my keyboard has the satire-modifier stuck on enabled. Damn - need to toss the keyboard out and fetch a new one. Better yet - I think I'll toss the whole computer away... much nicer to start tomorrow on a clean desk... well, so to speak.
Admin
Analogies are like products developed by <insert favorite hated company name here>: they never quite work right.
Admin
What about a happy xmas? dont tell me you are the victim of this "dont say xmas, we do not all celebrate it" stuff. because then, wishing a happy new year is invalid too. not all of us are celebrating a new year.
captcha: initech. the name of the company?
Admin
This would have been easy to do in C# ... oh well
Admin
That exact same thing happened to me :-(
Admin
That's a simile. (It uses like or as.) ;)
Admin
I ended up doing something like this once, just not as bad.
I'm in the process of rewriting an old custom app (rewriting because it was using Access, FoxPro, Delphi, only partial source was available, and the original developer had died). I had setup a Subversion server and was doing development on my laptop with eclipse, things were going along well... until
1) In a fit of updating things I upgraded the firmware on my Linksys wireless router. However I later found out that the new version would kick Linux systems off the network if WEP/WAP was enabled. My Subversion server was a Linux box, so I lost my source control.
2) After running about a week without source control and doing a fair amount of development I had hard drive problems on my laptop and lost all the source.
3) I had been pushing daily builds out to the company for testing and familiarity so I grabbed had to get the last release I sent to them, decompile it, and start there.
4) The app was written using Java 5, with all the nice new bells and whistles, the decompilers available really only supported Java 1.4.2 and lower, so some of the decompiled code was really interesting.
Nice ending though, I got back up, have been slowly un-obfuscating the code, and there hasn't been any bugs found due to the decompile fiasco.
Admin
Another WTF: The folks who hired the Great Old Ones probably still worked under the assumption that software is like a truck: onces you take final delivery of the finished item, it's completely ready for use, and maintenance can be done by any ol' mechanic. When they got the delivered software, they could have discovered both. First, they didn't know enough to ensure that they software was as needed once final delivery is agreed. Second, as the op said, "Tried as they might, the company was unable to summon back the Great Old Consultants." Probably they were too cheap or had otherwise poisoned the relationship. Believe me, you can always summon back a developer if you have sufficient coin and humility. Perhaps they determined that running through contractors at 3-month contracts at 120/hr was somehow more cost-effective than an extended maintenance agreement with the GOC at 200/hr.
And yes, I can think of a similar situation in one company I'm aware of. Like the change of seasons I can count on email from a recruiter every three months notifying me of an opportunity there.
Admin
If they want the source code when buying the system, that'll be a lot expensive.
If they want to pay cheap to get the system, the writers won't hand over source code. They want continual monthly maintanance charge to cover the prize reduction.
That's how software houses works anyway.
Admin
That was absolutely spectacular! I was cracking up after reading all of that! The picture topped it off. ROFL
Admin
Oh for fuck's sake. This "war on christmas" thing the religious zealots keep crowing about is nonexistent.
US Population, Census 2000:
Christianity: 79.8%
Other Religions: 5.2%
No Religion/Atheist/Agnostic: 15%
Yes, you 80 percent are being persecuted SO HORRIBLY. Take your BS and shove it.
Admin
No problem, just breed the ones you have.
Admin
SourceSafe? That's -10 sanity points before the game even begins.
Admin
I didn't catch your name until after reading, but the irony component is sky-high here. :p (For those not in the know, DB2's most-touted new feature is their "XML" (object-oriented) native storage and acceleration. IBM was the first to hop on that bandwagon and bring object-oriented DBs out of expensive niches.)
Similes and metaphors are both (the lowest form of) analogies.
Admin
PHP bytecode?
Isn't PHP an interpreted script language? o_O
Admin
Zend actually sells an Obfuscator that provides bytecompiled PHP code (which in turn is parsed by the Zend optimizer). I get the impression, though I've never been enough of a crackhead to try it, that it operates on the same principle as the bytecompiled/optimized python scripts (pyc/pyo).
Admin
Those who sell standard software at a fixed price to the masses, yes.
It is most certainly not true for custom software. Because the entire point of custom software is that it's tailored to your needs and can be extended and adjusted as those needs change.
Admin
Darin is obviously not wise in the ways of Codethulhu.
The trouble with breeding orphans is that, to get three more, you have to kill six of the ones you already have. Buying orphans is fine -- even Madonna does that. Killing them strikes me as a little extreme, just for a J2EE application.
Admin
Darin is obviously not wise in the ways of Codethulhu.
The trouble with breeding orphans is that, to get three more, you have to kill six of the ones you already have. Buying orphans is fine -- even Madonna does that. Killing them strikes me as a little extreme, just for a J2EE application.
(Augh! I hate this software.)
Admin
You can do that for example with eAccelerator.
Admin
People with no computing experience.
Admin
Probably the first time I've actually felt physical pain while reading a wtf.
Admin
PHP bytecode caches capture said bytecode and save it; eliminating the parse/compile phase for subsequent executions. Some go further and optimise/obfuscate the bytecode. And once you've got bytecode, who needs source code?!
The interpreter is still needed at runtime, of course, to deal with cases of on-the-fly code generation.
Admin
Hello.
Can we have a hi-res version of Codethulhu image as XMax gift for all we, the TDWTF readers?
The pure insanity of the image makes me cry :D
Thanks in advance.
-Anonymous.
Admin
Last time I checked, decompiled C# is every bit as ugly as decompiled Java.
Admin
What? throw away code and drive developers insane?
Admin
Uh, I once worked on such a server and it indeed required you to type its name backwards to gain access ;-)
(captcha: pacman - munch munch munch...)
Admin
Admin
But they won't be orphans, 'cause their parents are right there...
Chris
Admin
Yes. It's commonly done - so common, there are companies set up that do virtually nothing else: it's called code escrow. The contractor of the bespoke code lodges the source and utilities needed to build the code to a third party - the escrow company. Depending on the agreement and escrow company, when the code is lodged in escrow, the escrow company checks what is being lodged will build into a working product - which will include a demonstration of a simple code change during the verification test that they do.
It's not particularly cheap to have an escrow agreemenet like this (particularly where full verification is required), but it's essential for any business critical bespoke code. Presumably, some PHB at the company decided that escrow cost too much and they didn't need it. Of course, by now they've spent far more trying to support a program for which they have no source code than they ever would have on the code escrow which would have saved their asses.
Admin
They are probably joking. They put 'xmas' which "takes the christ out of christmas". Anyway, happy birthday, invisible sky fairy.
Admin
I had the dubious pleasure of reading my companies rules for computer usage the other day. Some highlights:
So you might think I work for a non-computer company, and that said policy is at least twenty years old. But unfortunately that isn't the case: the company is a software company, I am a programmer, and the policy is dated 2006...
And for the record, yes I understand what they mean. I just wish the same was true for the people writing this crap...
Admin
Which really shows how little they know about the history of such things. The X was a symbol for the cross and Christ in the early church, so xmas was frequently used in a religious context because it did, literally, mean Christmas. Kind of like most people have forgotten that Christmas Day is the first day of christmas, not the twelfth.
Admin
And actually, the "X" is not the English letter "X", but the Greek letter Chi. Chi also happens to be the first letter in the Greek word for Christ, Christos. In earlier times, when literary rates were much lower than they are today, the letter Chi was used as an abbreviation for Christ.
So "X" takes the Christ out of Christmas as much as the L takes the Language out of HyperText Markup Language.
Admin
So Merry Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanza/Yule/Winter Solstice/Pagan kids get presents day/Birthday of invisible sky fairy/Santa Claus day/Consumerism gluttony day/Holidays !
Admin
You can fix that killing then with a simple BubbleSort to order by birthday, so parents die first.
Admin
You're assuming that each orphan couple would only have one child then, or that you are using your orphans to breed orphans. The optimal strategy would be to buy slaves (orphans or not) breed them until you have sufficient children then kill the slaves, thus orphaning the children. If you are unable to purchase slaves then you must ensure that each orphan breeding pair produces at least three children to cover for killing the two parents. Amateurs.
Admin
I am C programmer, you insensitive clod!. Xmax is my (void *)(p*)(); day
Admin
Admin
no, its more like having the hood of your car welded shut when you buy it...
captcha: whiskey
Admin
Nope, don't think so. 'Winter Solstice' is the one in December, when winter begins, shortest daylight period, longest night period. 'Summer Solstice' is the one in June, when summer begins, longest daylight period, shortest night period. To be the opposite, the Southern Hemisphere would have had to create the definitions.
Admin
Actually The Summer Solstice is in December in the southern hemisphere. So if Anon was in Austrailia, he would have been completly correct.
Contrary to your definition, the winter solstice is not in december, but fits your extended definition as being the beginning of winter which happens to be in december in the north and June in the south. Today is the solstice, which one depends on which hemisphere you are in.
The definition is universal, our understanding of it is not.
Admin
It's not the project/codebase so much, as the general answers. For example, if the interviewer says "I'd burn it and start over", take it as a hint that it's a world-o-wtf's. If they say that it's perfect as-is, take it as a stronger hint of cluelessness. The point is to give them an opportunity to bitch and see where it goes.
Admin
You know, memory sticks go for about $25/gig nowadays. You can temporarily back up an awful lot of source in a pinch. I do it every day because our admin's are a whole blog of wtf's in and of themselves.