• (cs)

    Oh how I'd love to see the rest of that database...if only to laugh my ass off at the creator...

    First!?

  • (cs)

    The headphones!  They do nothing!

  • (cs)

    Record 1 of 91318.  I'm guessing this is the only table in the database.  Nice.

  • Ben (unregistered)

    Nice!

    So what does it do?

  • Michael Dell (unregistered)

        This looks very familar, I think he stole our idea as this is exactly how we did our online store -- using asp with an MDB file.


  • Chris (unregistered)

    My guess: The fields store binary numbers using blank space for 0 and X for 1.

  • (cs) in reply to Digitalbath

    Ooookay he's planned for the future as well.
    Just in case the fields end up being toooo short, we could use 'y' and 'z' or noughts.
    WTF!

  • Anton (unregistered) in reply to Digitalbath

    Digitalbath:
    Record 1 of 91318.  I'm guessing this is the only table in the database.  Nice.

    Given the table's name, I HIGHLY doubt it.

  • (cs) in reply to Digitalbath
    Digitalbath:
    Record 1 of 91318.  I'm guessing this is the only table in the database.  Nice.
    With a name like BRK07X, it's the only table?
    Not that I have any real data to contradict you with, of course. Looks like some sort of faux-bitmap, each record represents a single order in various categories (DATAn).
    But... "Nice" still applies.
  • (cs) in reply to Anton

    The next WTF would be an implementation of the algorithm to zip this data using LZW and unzip it during runtime.
    Oo and there would be the genius who would recommend a sparse matrix data structure to hold those XTFs.
    Brillant. Pure x-tasy.

  • (cs)

    Our first x-rated WTF ...

  • (cs) in reply to Anton
    Anonymous:

    Digitalbath:
    Record 1 of 91318.  I'm guessing this is the only table in the database.  Nice.

    Given the table's name, I HIGHLY doubt it.

    You don't name your db tables with 3 random letters then the last 2 digits of the upcoming year and then an "X"?  Weird.  I thought that was standard....</joke>

    Good point.

  • Timmy (unregistered)

    I'm sure the DataN fields are byte-mapped text fields.  I have seen something like this before...thought it was only one field...

    --Jim

  • Dr. Anonymous (unregistered)

    Heh.  I love the box there where it says "type a question for help."  I would type
    <font size="5">
    WTF?</font>


  • Ben Adams (unregistered)

    Battleship + Tic-Tac-Toe = Transaction?

  • (cs)

    The original system (this system was modelled after) used punched cards; x is where the holes were.

  • Rob Banzai (unregistered) in reply to ammoQ

    My first thought: abacus

  • (cs) in reply to ammoQ
    ammoQ:
    The original system (this system was modelled after) used punched cards; x is where the holes were.

    x is where the holes were (or not)

    captcha: dichotomy
  • (cs)

    Bah! This is OBVIOUSLY not a WTF! Anyone smarter than a peice of lint could OBVIOUSLY tell you how this works! The table name is OBVIOUSLY the Backwards Relationship Katalogue for item group 7X! The ID's are OBVIOUSLY the ID numbers of the items. The columns numbered DATA1-DATA52 are OBVIOUSLY for all 52 weeks of the year, and the x's in them OBVIOUSLY represent the day of the week for the item was purchase. Another table OBVIOUSLY holds the quantity of items purchased (for apparent reasons). OBVIOUSLY the buisness owner was trying to optimize his inventory, isn't it OBVIOUS!


  • Dr. Anonymous (unregistered)

    <quote>I'll leave it as an exersize for the reader to immagine how this point-of-sale system operated.</quote>

    Are you sure it was a point-of-sale system?  P.O.S. has another meaning....

    • Dr. A
  • (cs) in reply to ammoQ
    ammoQ:
    The original system (this system was modelled after) used punched cards; x is where the holes were.


    That would be my guess as well.  I've seen these types of tables on AS400's so I'll say the table was just imported from the primary system.


  • (cs) in reply to Dr. Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    Heh.  I love the box there where it says "type a question for help."  I would type
    WTF?


    The WTF is not that MS Access was used as a database, it is the table structure that is the WTF. Well, your comment was funnier and a bigger WTF than Alex's post.
  • Demarcus Cherish? (unregistered) in reply to GoatCheez
    GoatCheez:
    Bah! This is OBVIOUSLY not a WTF! Anyone smarter than a peice of lint could OBVIOUSLY tell you how this works! The table name is OBVIOUSLY the Backwards Relationship Katalogue for item group 7X! The ID's are OBVIOUSLY the ID numbers of the items. The columns numbered DATA1-DATA52 are OBVIOUSLY for all 52 weeks of the year, and the x's in them OBVIOUSLY represent the day of the week for the item was purchase. Another table OBVIOUSLY holds the quantity of items purchased (for apparent reasons). OBVIOUSLY the buisness owner was trying to optimize his inventory, isn't it OBVIOUS!




    /me listens closely
    /me dies
  • (cs)
    Alex Papadimoulis:

    I'll leave it as an exersize for the reader to immagine how this point-of-sale system operated.



    Yes, that's quite a P.O.S. system they've got there.

  • zeus (unregistered)

    The real WTF is the last line of this post:

    "I'll leave it as an exersize for the reader to immagine how this point-of-sale system operated."

  • (cs) in reply to GoatCheez
    GoatCheez:
    Bah! This is OBVIOUSLY not a WTF! Anyone smarter than a peice of lint could OBVIOUSLY tell you how this works! The table name is OBVIOUSLY the Backwards Relationship Katalogue for item group 7X! The ID's are OBVIOUSLY the ID numbers of the items. The columns numbered DATA1-DATA52 are OBVIOUSLY for all 52 weeks of the year, and the x's in them OBVIOUSLY represent the day of the week for the item was purchase. Another table OBVIOUSLY holds the quantity of items purchased (for apparent reasons). OBVIOUSLY the buisness owner was trying to optimize his inventory, isn't it OBVIOUS!




    DATA52 ?
    My xoxxles!! They dont work.
  • Matt (unregistered)

    I used to do stuff like this in my word processer (AppleWorks) though I was drawing ASCII art rather than trying to manage a business.  And I was about 14.  Other than that, it's the same.  Not so big a WTF.

  • (cs)
    Alex Papadimoulis:

    As an independent consultant, Steve G. sees his fair share bizarre, homebrewed applications that somehow manage to run a business.



    After de-anonymizing this, we'll find that Steve G. (not his real name) is not an independent consultant at all, but works for a major software company.  The system in question is not an Access database, either, but a snippet of UI handling code in Visual Basic.  Instead of x's and spaces, the code contains the usual VB statements and misnamed variables (not much more legible than the x's, granted).  Of course there is a WTF in the original, but it's impossible to tell what it is, because the submission has been fictionalized by an unknown amount along an unspecified number of axes, sort of like this:

    <font face="Courier New">             W
    T------------|----------F
    </font>
    Yes, I'm still annoyed that Alex refuses to even hint how much of each posting is true, if any, and how much is fictional.

  • Kek (unregistered)

    "

    ... the exception being that Steve told the business owner that he was on his own. I'll leave it as an <FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ff0000">exersize</FONT> for the reader to <FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ff0000">immagine</FONT> how this point-of-sale system operated.

    "

    L2Spell, imo...

  • (cs)

    minesweeper! YAY!!!

  • orbit (unregistered)
    Alex Papadimoulis:

    I'll leave it as an exersize for the reader to immagine how this point-of-sale system operated.


    I submit that it is more likely that Steve G. nor Alex wanted to actually figure out how this mess worked.

    /captcha : captcha
  • (cs)

    /me faints and goes into epileptic shock

    heck, i'm tempted to press the Report Abuse button, if that's not the most clear case of abusing us, I don't know what else is...

  • Dale Williams (unregistered)

    I have 20+ years of database work.  Started with INFO, DB2 & dBASE II.  "Classically" trained in database theory.  Read Codd & Date once for fun.  I've been looking at this now for more time then I care to admit and I don't have a clue about how this works.

    There needs to be a category beyond Daily WTF.  Something like Uber-WTF.

  • (cs) in reply to pjsson
    pjsson:
    Anonymous:
    Heh.  I love the box there where it says "type a question for help."  I would type
    WTF?


    The WTF is not that MS Access was used as a database, it is the table structure that is the WTF. Well, your comment was funnier and a bigger WTF than Alex's post.
    Begging to differ, but using MS Access in a production system is a solid WTF. The table structure merits a WTF too, of course.
  • (cs) in reply to byte_lancer

    If you laid all of the punch cards on a wooden table and photographed them, then you could store an image of each card in single field.

  • (cs)

    White space should always be meaningful.

  • Got enough wtfs of my own (unregistered)

    x                  x      x   x   x      x   x   x

       x      x    x              x           x   x   x 

          x      x                 x           x 

     

    I figured it out!

  • (cs)

    Anybody noticed the creative ID column?
    I've got to start using ids like those: last char - 0-9, second last - A-Z, ... I can only guess that third char is from this set: [!@#$%^&()]

    I should probably start using chars from local charset for next ones... that would make some unique ids like:

    4, T5, %G2, A&L2, ðE    T0, ...

    :)

  • Bruteforce (unregistered) in reply to JBL

    A Meltdown WTF?

  • (cs)

    This is easy...

    x marks the spot.

  • Dazed (unregistered) in reply to GoatCheez
    GoatCheez:
    Bah! This is OBVIOUSLY not a WTF! Anyone smarter than a peice of lint could OBVIOUSLY tell you how this works! The table name is OBVIOUSLY the Backwards Relationship Katalogue for item group 7X! The ID's are OBVIOUSLY the ID numbers of the items. The columns numbered DATA1-DATA52 are OBVIOUSLY for all 52 weeks of the year, and the x's in them OBVIOUSLY represent the day of the week for the item was purchase.

    Looking at the horizontal scroll-bar I'd say there are about 23 columns in this table, not 52.

    Admittedly as a step in understanding this application that's about as useful as climbing a step-ladder on the way to the moon. This is a first-class WTF.

  • DirkDiggler (unregistered)
    almost seems like you can fit 7 x's evenly across, im thinking they mean day of week perhaps.
    todo what i have no idea
  • shizzle (unregistered) in reply to byte_lancer

    byte_lancer:
    ammoQ:
    The original system (this system was modelled after) used punched cards; x is where the holes were.

    x is where the holes were (or not)

    captcha: dichotomy

    It's a Bool, not a boolean - think: File Not Found

  • mmarcmac (unregistered)

    This is one frame in the simulation game "life", that the "brother's sister-in-law's mother's second-cousin's son" had to implement for his beginning CS class.  This is the starting position, and he iterated through 91318 cycles before he ran out of disk space.

    Then he printed all of them out on the old dot-matrix, peeled off the sprocket strips, and handed the pile in.

  • GrandmasterB (unregistered)

    This is so bad you almost have to wonder if it was done on purpose to sabotage the company.   Maybe Steve used to beat his brother's sister-in-law's mother's second-cousin's son when he was little.

  • Was Anders (unregistered) in reply to Kek
    Anonymous:
    "

    ... the exception being that Steve told the business owner that he was on his own. I'll leave it as an <font style="background-color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">exersize</font> for the reader to <font style="background-color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">immagine</font> how this point-of-sale system operated.

    "

    L2Spell, imo...



    I think the misspelling of xersixe was quite intentional.

    Captcha: SomethingWhichCanBeCleverlyRelatedToTheSubject (not).
  • Tei (unregistered)

    A creative interpretation:

    bits:
    0123ABCD

    Meaning:

    0 - X=Active, " "=no active (not for sale)
    1 - X=Include batery, " "=no
    2 - RESERVERD
    A - X=Stock available, " "= no stock available
    ...

    About the "ID", is another composed stuff

    ??.

    ? (first char) - catalog ( K,N,P,L,M...)
    ? (2th char) - id item number

    So L2 read like that:

    L2 is active and include vatery (data3 is "XXX     ")

    --Tei

  • (cs) in reply to Tei

    Hey! I see Orion!

  • (cs) in reply to byte_lancer
    byte_lancer:

    Oo and there would be the genius who would recommend a sparse matrix data structure to hold those XTFs.


    Actually, a sparse matrix data structure is exactly what should have been used before.  A sparse matrix data structure just stores the row and column ids of the ones that are active.  In otherwords, it would be a properly denormalized table.  Of course, you would probably want to fix the row and column ids to something more meaningful than what they are now, but hopefully, you get the idea.
  • (cs) in reply to viraptor

    viraptor:
    Anybody noticed the creative ID column?
    I've got to start using ids like those: last char - 0-9, second last - A-Z, ... I can only guess that third char is from this set: [!@#$%^&*()]

    I should probably start using chars from local charset for next ones... that would make some unique ids like:

    4, T5, %G2, A&L2, ðE*T0, ...

    :)
    Unfortunately, I regularly deal with a system that does exactly that. ACT! (now owned by Sage Software) has internal unique IDs for contacts, users, activities, and history with nasty characters in them:

    G#',  1sa

    yes, spaces, apostrophes, quotes. A real pain to work with programatically.

Leave a comment on “The X-Data Specialist”

Log In or post as a guest

Replying to comment #:

Log Out

« Return to Article