The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

eddieboston · 2006-02-27 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
ParkinT:

SEX is a verb,

GENDER is a noun

In addition, my RACE is the same as everyone else: HUMAN

Huh?? Please conjugate the alleged verb "sex"?

And human (aka homo sapiens) is a species. Personally, I'm part of the great rat race.;)

I sex.
You sex.
Your mama sexes.

Free · 2006-02-27 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
It's sex. Not gender. Gender is "a distinction of words roughly answering to sex (gram). So, the gender of "La maison" is feminine. Whether a person is a man or a woman is his or her sex. Not his gender.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=gender

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=sex

Usage Note: Traditionally, gender has been used primarily to refer to the grammatical categories of “masculine,” “feminine,” and “neuter,” but in recent years the word has become well established in its use to refer to sex-based categories, as in phrases such as gender gap and the politics of gender. This usage is supported by the practice of many anthropologists, who reserve sex for reference to biological categories, while using gender to refer to social or cultural categories. According to this rule, one would say The effectiveness of the medication appears to depend on the sex (not gender) of the patient, but In peasant societies, gender (not sex) roles are likely to be more clearly defined. This distinction is useful in principle, but it is by no means widely observed, and considerable variation in usage occurs at all levels.

2006-02-27 Reply Admin

Anonymous:

The ultimate in exstensibility is the Dictionary (pick your favorite). Every word you're ever going to need is in there. You just have to drag-n-drop the right ones. Aye, there's the rub. . .

Incorrect. I can point to many examples of words that are used in common, everyday speech that are not in your common dictionary. Furturemore I can point to words in most more advanced novels that you will have to go hunting for a dictionary that actually has it. The common dictionary does not.

However, in terms of infinate extensibility, you could discuss the set of graphemes of the english language, and while that is limited to languages that use english symbology, there is no reason you could not create a database of graphemes of all spoken languages (think unicode). However, that gets you no close to constructing a word than a monkey pounding away on a typewriter.

2006-02-27 Reply Admin

Satanicpuppy:
You know, I hate access. It's a common feeling among DBAs and programmers...The damn thing won't let you do anything you really WANT to do.

However, it's amazing for people who aren't otherwise technically skilled. Everything is drag and drop and very intuitive, you can build (massively inefficient) SQL queries without knowing SQL, you can link tables with a simple drag and drop, and it'll enforce relationships...

I think their biggest screwup was not in trying to reinvent access, but in reinventing access, poorly. This whole "infinitely extensible" trend is getting out of control. I can give you an extensible system in a few minutes...Modern programming language + Modern Database = extensible system. Now all you need is a few doen people to run it and you're good to go.

You know, I actually found a use for MS Access and it ain't for database and/or application developpement. It's the quickest way to interface databases of different origins and run queries on them, like for example running a join table query between an Oracle table and an Excel spreadsheet, copying a MySQL table into MS SQL Server using INSERT INTO... SELECT FROM syntax, etc...

It's not the fastest running queries, but it gets the job done without having to write code modules. That's the best power of MS Access, linking systems through ODBC connections.

Jeff S · 2006-02-27 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Satanicpuppy:
You know, I hate access. It's a common feeling among DBAs and programmers...The damn thing won't let you do anything you really WANT to do.

However, it's amazing for people who aren't otherwise technically skilled. Everything is drag and drop and very intuitive, you can build (massively inefficient) SQL queries without knowing SQL, you can link tables with a simple drag and drop, and it'll enforce relationships...

I think their biggest screwup was not in trying to reinvent access, but in reinventing access, poorly. This whole "infinitely extensible" trend is getting out of control. I can give you an extensible system in a few minutes...Modern programming language + Modern Database = extensible system. Now all you need is a few doen people to run it and you're good to go.

You know, I actually found a use for MS Access and it ain't for database and/or application developpement. It's the quickest way to interface databases of different origins and run queries on them, like for example running a join table query between an Oracle table and an Excel spreadsheet, copying a MySQL table into MS SQL Server using INSERT INTO... SELECT FROM syntax, etc...

It's not the fastest running queries, but it gets the job done without having to write code modules. That's the best power of MS Access, linking systems through ODBC connections.

Agreed, it is an excelling DTS replacement, and you get the ability to have local storage, a UI, reports, and so on. I typically write most conversion tools in Access. You can put everything you need in a single MDB file.

As for SatanicPuppy -- can you give an example of when Access "won't you do anything you really WANT to do" ? If you want a true server database application, then yes, it won't let you do that too well. But if you use it for what it is designed for, it works pretty damn well.

Bus Raker · 2006-02-27 Reply Admin

I use MS Access to make quick and dirty 'live' prototypes of stuff. Then if the project gets approved I'll develop it for real in something that is for real.

I can't think of a quicker way to throw ODBC connections, code, and a form together for demostration purposes.

2006-02-27 Reply Admin

You just didn't see what he had before. Before, he had a post that used inline styles (namely, fixed positioning, alignment to the top left, white background, and size big enough to cover the whole page) to cover up the entire thread. Fairly clever, but altogether annoying. The "x" is what's in his place.

2006-02-27 Reply Admin

In the interests of accuracy...

Someone said "Whether a person is a man or a woman is his or her sex." Certainly MOST people are born male or female, but there are more than two possibilities for birth sex.

And I don't think "pre-op male" is a sex. Some people are born "intersexed", with both male parts and female parts, and are commonly called hermaphrodites. This has nothing to do with people feeling like they are a female trapped in a male body, or vice versa; those people are called transgendered (especially after the operation(s)).

If you look at chromosomes (the 23rd?), most people have either XX or XY ( I think) but a few have XXY or other variations.

The design is still a WTF, but people should realize that there are more than two sexes. The others are just very rare.

ammoQ · 2006-02-27 Reply Admin

Generic data models are the way to hell.
Simple rule: Never ever use them.

Oracle's Thomas Kyte ranting about generic data models

2006-02-27 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
fist

Fisting around, eh? ;)

2006-02-27 Reply Admin

to sex is to determine the gender...

2006-02-27 Reply Admin

R.Flowers:
First time I have noticed... one of the posts is 'Locked' - the 'Reply' and 'Quote' buttons are missing. I've heard of locking a thread, but not an individual post.

now that you mention it...
and they also deleted my post today!!!

just in case anyone missed it, I posted:
"Second!"

2006-02-27 Reply Admin

and when did they start requesting the name and added the CAPTCHA?

2006-02-27 Reply Admin

ah... I GOTCHA!!... is because I used a different browser this time :$

mallard · 2006-02-27 Reply Admin

I just noticed that the form's icon is the default VB6 form icon. Does that mean this was written in VB6?

If so wouldn't that be the real WTF?

Writing a sophisticated single-user database app in VB6 with a complex user interface is enough of a hack, writing a database-driven application framework in VB6, now that is a major WTF.

triso · 2006-02-27 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
It's sex. Not gender...

Sorry, but where I come from, sex is a boolean (True, False) or perhaps (YES, NO).

triso · 2006-02-27 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Huh?? Please conjugate the alleged verb "sex"?

Very funny!

2006-02-27 Reply Admin

triso:
Anonymous:
It's sex. Not gender...
Sorry, but where I come from, sex is a boolean (True, False) or perhaps (YES, NO).

and FILE_NOT_FOUND

Quinnum · 2006-02-27 Reply Admin

ferrengi:
Anonymous:
Seems like they need a generic procedure and form to go along with their generic values. Seriously, though, I can think of one reason to edit the genders: to add 'pre-op male', 'pre-op female', 'post-op male', and 'post-op female' to the list. Some hospitals need to keep track of that.

I work with hospitals too. They typically have as table like this:

M - Male
F - Female
U- Unknown

I've worked with hospital software for years too. In addition to the above, we also had I - Indeterminate. Then one of the clients approached us to add O - Other.

ummmm, I'm still trying to work that one out...!

And, yes, the gender table was hard-coded into the system.

2006-02-27 Reply Admin

ferrengi:

I work with hospitals too. They typically have as table like this:

M - Male
F - Female
U- Unknown

Shouldn't that be:

M - Male
F - Female
W - WTF?

2006-02-27 Reply Admin

Anonymous:

Shouldn't that be:

M - Male
F - Female
W - WTF?

Or:

M - Male
F - Female
E - Eunich
M - Multiple
W - WTF
U - Unknown

M would be for conjoined twins most likely.
W would be for Anonymous
U would be for people who haven't yet been identified.

2006-02-27 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
fist

owwwwwww O_o

2006-02-27 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
I agree with Das's wife. Gender and sex are not the same thing.

Of course they're not! I have a gender, but never any sex!

2006-02-27 Reply Admin

"i sexed her up pretty good"

nickf · 2006-02-28 Reply Admin

see, i woulda gone with:

public enum GENDERBOOL

{
  TRUE,
  FALSE,
  FALLOPIAN_NOT_FOUND
}

baldric · 2006-02-28 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
It's sex. Not gender. Gender is "a distinction of words roughly answering to sex (gram). So, the gender of "La maison" is feminine. Whether a person is a man or a woman is his or her sex. Not his gender.

true, but, the modern and popular usage of "gender" is now sometimes appropriate, as it is not only a grammatical term, it also refers to how someone 'wishes' to be known. In other words, if I decide I prefer to be referred to as a female, then my gender is Female, yet my sex is Male. I've studied this. (And no, I don't want this to stick. Please) But, SEX should almost always be used in this, as your Sex is usually more important than your chosen Gender.

Oh and btw, nothing wrong with having a Gender table generally, as it helps with reporting, standard form population etc.

The naming standard reminds me of apps a la Great Plains, AccPac etc.... shudder

2006-02-28 Reply Admin

I don't see what more can be accomplished by DBing Gender in its own table than by simply having a single field linked to a listbox that has "M", "F" and "T"(ranssexual) on it. <_<

baldric · 2006-02-28 Reply Admin

mallard:
I just noticed that the form's icon is the default VB6 form icon. Does that mean this was written in VB6?

If so wouldn't that be the real WTF?

Writing a sophisticated single-user database app in VB6 with a complex user interface is enough of a hack, writing a database-driven application framework in VB6, now that is a major WTF.

lol, I was just waiting for some tool to finally notice the VB6 icon.... Bit slower than usual dontcha think? Tell me good sir, EXACTLY why using VB6 here was a hack? (this should be good.... :) )

2006-02-28 Reply Admin

I once spent a few weeks reinventing objects and inheritance and reflection for variables and of course serialization (to xml) and so forth... I called it ContentZ, I wrote a GO player using HTML forms with it as a cgi script storing games as "xml" files.

I wrote it in pure -ansi -traditional -pedantic -Wall -W gcc of course.

It was in C of course.

I also started a 3D modeler in opengl (but never bothered to implement save/load in it, even though I had the serializer, go figure).

I'd show you a website where a modified screen shot from the modeller was, but it went down.

I learned a lot, but it sucked. I've since lost all that code, and I don't regret it.

2006-02-28 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
ParkinT:

SEX is a verb,

GENDER is a noun

In addition, my RACE is the same as everyone else: HUMAN

Huh?? Please conjugate the alleged verb "sex"?

And human (aka homo sapiens) is a species. Personally, I'm part of the great rat race.;)

<singing quality="badly">
ooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhh ooooooooohhhhhhhoooooooohhhhhhh oooooooooohhhhh oooohh

To the R tick-tock you don't stop...

I wanna sex you up....
</singing>

Fred · 2006-02-28 Reply Admin

Alex Papadimoulis:
Das recently started at a small software company on the verge of completing the ultimate application: a fully-customizable system. The initial design of the system was to be so generic that they could simply edit some configuration files and go from a client management system to an order entry system. Halfway through, when they realized that they had essentially reinvented Microsoft Access, they decided to change directions and build the application towards the actual client requirements: a contact management system.

I thought this was already implemented and sold as a pile-of-dung called SAP

Anonymouse · 2006-02-28 Reply Admin

This is the sign of truly visionary designer; he is even planning ahead for the day we might encounter an alien species with more than two genders. Awesome!

Dorfl · 2006-02-28 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
"i sexed her up pretty good"

"I sexed her up well."

Dorfl · 2006-02-28 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
"i sexed her up pretty good"

Also, "her"? Who do you think you're fooling?

2006-02-28 Reply Admin

Believe it or not, this kind of "fully customizable" systems are being asked more and more often. Yes, they might sound like over-engineering, specially for this case. The simple solution might be an addressbook, but maybe that was too simple.
As das said, a flexible system can save the client some bucks in customization, if included in the service fee. On the other hand, big-end systems like crappy Scala (an ERP system) does the same thing (all table and column names are crappy random numbers) and they DO milk you thousands of dollards for deploying their crap in your enterprise.
So, this is hardly a WTF. It might look as overkilling the requirements, but sometimes, this is what the clients actually want.

2006-02-28 Reply Admin

It's nice they were trying to design a system that could be maintained.
However they clearly have no idea how to actually do that.

Having a table to maintain types for sex is fine, all that other crap they have to go through seems like over kill.

My running joke at work is that you could make your system so generic that what you end up with is simply another programming langauge but no actual system, at some point you have got to put your business logic in. Smart developers are able to assess the best place for that.

2006-02-28 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
It might look as overkilling the requirements, but sometimes, this is what the clients actually want.

My experience: Sometimes the worst you can give the client is exactly what they ask for. I've told clients "that's the worst idea ever, you'd be lucky if it just wastes time and money" countless times. Just wrap it up really nicely and they'll thank you for the advice.

I've even just made things totally different from what they insisted on, and still having them thank me. "Hey, that's a lot better than what I asked for, you're a genious". Yeah, that wasn't your words when I suggested it two months ago.

What does the client want? What does he say he wants? What does he actually need? Very different things. Try giving them the last one, but maybe make it look like the first one.

Just a comment on that single sentence, you probably agree. ;-)

Taipan · 2006-02-28 Reply Admin

I can't stop laughing... Delete Female [:D]

jwenting · 2006-02-28 Reply Admin

within the entire context of the system, having a single field hardcoded as having 2 specific values would be a far larger WTF than having a field that has only 2 obvious values completely flexible like this...
Whether the application needs that massive overall flexibility is of course another question entirely and quite likely it didn't (though without it it might not have been externsible enough to allow Das to add those extra fields at all).

2006-02-28 Reply Admin

kipthegreat:
Anonymous:
I agree with Das's wife. Gender and sex are not the same thing.

^^^^^^
Hippie bullshit

Not very eloquent, but well put. Of course, strictly speaking, they are not 100% synonymous, but in the current discussion, gender could according to my dictionary: definition 2: the state of being male or female. Check yours for an alternative definition...

Anyway, back to the main issue: they should have added two tables instead of one. One table for sex, the other for gender.

As a matter of fact, I think I'm going to recommend someone to turn this into law. Think of the possibilities: I'm sure everybody has received mail addressed to "Mr./Mrs.", and I'm also sure you thought that was ridiculous, but with sex/gender addressing, this possibility will become correct.

One small step for man, but a great step for pre/post/non-op (wo)mankind.

2006-02-28 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Believe it or not, this kind of "fully customizable" systems are being asked more and more often. Yes, they might sound like over-engineering, specially for this case. The simple solution might be an addressbook, but maybe that was too simple.
As das said, a flexible system can save the client some bucks in customization, if included in the service fee. On the other hand, big-end systems like crappy Scala (an ERP system) does the same thing (all table and column names are crappy random numbers) and they DO milk you thousands of dollards for deploying their crap in your enterprise.
So, this is hardly a WTF. It might look as overkilling the requirements, but sometimes, this is what the clients actually want.

"Fully customizeable" Systems based on generic data models are a bad joke. If you want to be able to fully customize, get the source and use VS or Eclipse to do the customization. Add columns or create new tables in the database if you need them. But don't build a flexible system on top of an already flexible system (the DBMS). Don't invent pathetic new languages just to avoid exposure to VB/Java/C#/Whatever.

2006-02-28 Reply Admin

As most of you know, there are 3 genders (sexes ?) : male, female and filenotfound.

mallard · 2006-02-28 Reply Admin

baldric:
mallard:
I just noticed that the form's icon is the default VB6 form icon. Does that mean this was written in VB6?

If so wouldn't that be the real WTF?

Writing a sophisticated single-user database app in VB6 with a complex user interface is enough of a hack, writing a database-driven application framework in VB6, now that is a major WTF.

lol, I was just waiting for some tool to finally notice the VB6 icon.... Bit slower than usual dontcha think? Tell me good sir, EXACTLY why using VB6 here was a hack? (this should be good.... :) )

Just to point out, I have used VB6 extensively. Here are some of the reasons that writing complex software in VB6 feels like a hack:

Lack of proper error handling. No exceptions, (although you can sometimes use events) just ON ERROR *.
The lack of a proper OO model. You have classes, but also forms and modules with no proper superclass or instantiation. Oh, and don't forget usercontrols.
Lack of proper multithreading. I still don't understand when things will run concurrently and when they will not. There is also a sort of "co-operative multithreading" (using DoEvents()) that makes things even less clear.
The fact that database access is usually through a control associated with the user interface. Same for even timers. Also, if you leave the database control visible, it has record navigation buttons that work with data-bound fields.
Data bound fields are really quite broken. They are OK for just browsing data, but they can also be used to create records. In that case, things like validation and giving the user a selector rather than entering data directly become very difficult. I usually find it easier just to not use data binding in the first place, and fill on-screen fields programaticially.
Compatibility. Depending on which version of the VB runtime is installed and which version of ADO/DAO is installed, VB6 may be limited to using Access 97 .mdb's or may be able to use Access 2000 .mdb's. Seeing as special conversion steps are necissary in Access 2000+ to open/save 97 files, manual inspection and modifacation become difficult.
ADO is difficult to find. I ended up shipping the "MDAC_TYP.EXE" file from the VB6 CD with my last major app, because ADO (3.5) is not installed by default and the "MDAC_TYP.EXE" on microsoft's website only includes ADO 4.0 which does not work the same way.

Obviously my .mdb and ADO problems only really apply to single-user database apps, the kind I have made in the past. I have not been involved in apps using a database sever, but I have heard of similar issues.

tmnich · 2006-02-28 Reply Admin

Or perhaps

MALE [H]

FEMALE [}]

FEMALE_NOT_FOUND [W]

2006-02-28 Reply Admin

.. which just goes to show, any attribute named "gender" is likely going to need extending to add "neuter". So all that extensibiliy was well-founded, I suppose.

2006-02-28 Reply Admin

mallard:
baldric:
mallard:
I just noticed that the form's icon is the default VB6 form icon. Does that mean this was written in VB6?

If so wouldn't that be the real WTF?

Writing a sophisticated single-user database app in VB6 with a complex user interface is enough of a hack, writing a database-driven application framework in VB6, now that is a major WTF.

lol, I was just waiting for some tool to finally notice the VB6 icon.... Bit slower than usual dontcha think? Tell me good sir, EXACTLY why using VB6 here was a hack? (this should be good.... :) )

Just to point out, I have used VB6 extensively. Here are some of the reasons that writing complex software in VB6 feels like a hack:

Lack of proper error handling. No exceptions, (although you can sometimes use events) just ON ERROR *.

The lack of a proper OO model. You have classes, but also forms and modules with no proper superclass or instantiation. Oh, and don't forget usercontrols.

Lack of proper multithreading. I still don't understand when things will run concurrently and when they will not. There is also a sort of "co-operative multithreading" (using DoEvents()) that makes things even less clear.

The fact that database access is usually through a control associated with the user interface. Same for even timers. Also, if you leave the database control visible, it has record navigation buttons that work with data-bound fields.

Data bound fields are really quite broken. They are OK for just browsing data, but they can also be used to create records. In that case, things like validation and giving the user a selector rather than entering data directly become very difficult. I usually find it easier just to not use data binding in the first place, and fill on-screen fields programaticially.

Compatibility. Depending on which version of the VB runtime is installed and which version of ADO/DAO is installed, VB6 may be limited to using Access 97 .mdb's or may be able to use Access 2000 .mdb's. Seeing as special conversion steps are necissary in Access 2000+ to open/save 97 files, manual inspection and modifacation become difficult.

ADO is difficult to find. I ended up shipping the "MDAC_TYP.EXE" file from the VB6 CD with my last major app, because ADO (3.5) is not installed by default and the "MDAC_TYP.EXE" on microsoft's website only includes ADO 4.0 which does not work the same way.

Obviously my .mdb and ADO problems only really apply to single-user database apps, the kind I have made in the past. I have not been involved in apps using a database sever, but I have heard of similar issues.

Please sir, this is spoken like a guy that never really used VB6 and instead just jumped on the bandwagon. I'll address your issues here.

1. Lack of proper error handling? Compare this side by side:
On error goto ErrCatch                     Try
'some code
Goto Cleanup
ErrCatch:                                          Catch
'error trapping code
Cleanup:                                             Finally
'Cleanup code
                                                       End Try
No difference here.

2. Lack of proper OO and no super classing? Ok agree here, but you can actually subclass, and I am not talking about just creating a control to host other controls.
3. Proper multithreading? You actually can do it, officially unsupported but it does work. The problem is trying to support it while using edit and continue then justy hitting stop.
4. Data access through a control, not necessary. You yourself stated that you can use ADO directly. think about these two stastements together.
5. Compatibility, this is a problem with all languages when trying to access Access, not a VB only issue.
6. ADO difficult to find? Once again this is NOT VB. If you need to use ADO regardless of language the difficulty doesn't change.

Jeff S · 2006-02-28 Reply Admin

Jeff S:
Anonymous:
Satanicpuppy:
You know, I hate access. It's a common feeling among DBAs and programmers...The damn thing won't let you do anything you really WANT to do.

However, it's amazing for people who aren't otherwise technically skilled. Everything is drag and drop and very intuitive, you can build (massively inefficient) SQL queries without knowing SQL, you can link tables with a simple drag and drop, and it'll enforce relationships...

I think their biggest screwup was not in trying to reinvent access, but in reinventing access, poorly. This whole "infinitely extensible" trend is getting out of control. I can give you an extensible system in a few minutes...Modern programming language + Modern Database = extensible system. Now all you need is a few doen people to run it and you're good to go.

You know, I actually found a use for MS Access and it ain't for database and/or application developpement. It's the quickest way to interface databases of different origins and run queries on them, like for example running a join table query between an Oracle table and an Excel spreadsheet, copying a MySQL table into MS SQL Server using INSERT INTO... SELECT FROM syntax, etc...

It's not the fastest running queries, but it gets the job done without having to write code modules. That's the best power of MS Access, linking systems through ODBC connections.

Agreed, it is an excelling excellent DTS replacement, and you get the ability to have local storage, a UI, reports, and so on. I typically write most conversion tools in Access. You can put everything you need in a single MDB file.

As for SatanicPuppy -- can you give an example of when Access "won't let you do anything you really WANT to do" ? If you want a true server database application, then yes, it won't let you do that too well. But if you use it for what it is designed for, it works pretty damn well.

Wow .. lots of weird typos on that one. sorry for all those offended!

marvin_rabbit · 2006-02-28 Reply Admin

rbriem:
dasmb:

<snip>
dasmb

Oh, and for a real WTF: I told my wife -- a Marxist anthropologist, and that's Marxism as a social theory, not an economic one -- about this WTF, and she scoffed "You're talking about sex, not gender. Gender is a social construct and changes frequently...you really should be tracking that." I guess those guys deserve credit for helping to model our ever changing society.
</snip>

Those Marxists! They're loads of fun at parties ...

:)

Groucho was funny, but I always liked Chico Marxist the best!

campkev · 2006-02-28 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
It's sex. Not gender. Gender is "a distinction of words roughly answering to sex (gram). So, the gender of "La maison" is feminine. Whether a person is a man or a woman is his or her sex. Not his gender.

Absolutely right.

And forte is pronounced fort not fortay.

And "beg the question" means evade the question, not leads to the question.

And it's "Just Deserts" not "Just Desserts"

And the new millenium started January 1, 2001, not January 1, 2000.

Any other pet peeves we should address.

eddieboston · 2006-02-28 Reply Admin

tmnich:
Or perhaps

MALE [H]

FEMALE [}]

FEMALE_NOT_FOUND [W]

It's more like:

MALE = 1,
FEMALE = 0,
FRENCH = FILE_NOT_FOUND

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