The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2012-01-09 Reply Admin

TRWTF is that he's trying to re-implement his Excel spreadsheet in PHP/JS. When cell EE updates, what else are you supposed to call, but stateChangedee()?

C-Octothorpe · 2012-01-09 Reply Admin

caper:
The guy instead found a way to learn PHP on company time before leaving.

Must've been a complete moran... Why would anybody commit career suicide by intentionally putting PHP on their resume?Flame war!

2012-01-09 Reply Admin

qbolec:
How one can could hope to develop a good ticketing system without one at hand?

I think, I meant a soda can. They seem to work for me well.

2012-01-09 Reply Admin

is this frist stuff still funny?

2012-01-09 Reply Admin

That's their point, although Javascript does support both, it's hokey as fuck and crap!

C-Octothorpe · 2012-01-09 Reply Admin

Jan Jansen:
is this frist stuff still funny?

It only has to be funny to the retard that makes those posts...

2012-01-09 Reply Admin

Anon:
Step 1: Create a bug ticketing system that doesn't work at all (doesn't actually submit any tickets) Step 2: Tell everybody if they have any problems with the system - submit a ticket on the system Step 3: Claim the system is working perfectly since you have no outstanding tickets Step 4: ???? Step 5: Profit!

Step 4: Name the program ClearQuest

2012-01-09 Reply Admin

I know you meant this as a joke, but I'm just curious which languages you wouldn't consider career suicide? Java and .NET are popular at the moment, but they (Java especially * 1000) are starting to be a little dinosauric. Usage of IIS is also dropping, signaling that people are moving on to something else besides core .NET tech.

As a PHP programmer, I'm ok with putting that on my resume...but I will NEVER put Drupal on my resume. The day I have to do another site using Drupal is the day I quit programming altogether.

CAPTCHA: praesent.

2012-01-09 Reply Admin

"What's up with all the double quotes at the beginning of every paragraph?

"Only the first paragraph has it correct. >:[

2012-01-09 Reply Admin

dkf:
What's more, having used JIRA and Bugzilla and Mantis (in the same project no less, which is indeed TRWTF but unrelated), I can report that JIRA is by far the most pleasant and useful. ... but that's better than the outright hostility of Mantis and the reporting is significantly easier than with Bugzilla.

Is Mantis that bad? I used it with one organisation a couple of years ago, and I don't recall any major problems. Admittedly we were only logging a few issues per week.

But for slightly larger projects I'm happy to second your vote for JIRA. And Redmine seemed pretty good as well, though I've not used that as much.

whiznat · 2012-01-09 Reply Admin

"I told management that there was nothing worth saving, and we have yet to switch from email and post-it notes."

TRWTF is that management listened to him. I would have expected them to insist that he salvage everything they had already invested in this steaming pile, with strict instructions not to start from scratch.

C-Octothorpe · 2012-01-09 Reply Admin

Ryan:
I know you meant this as a joke, but I'm just curious which languages you wouldn't consider career suicide? Java and .NET are popular at the moment, but they (Java especially * 1000) are starting to be a little dinosauric. Usage of IIS is also dropping, signaling that people are moving on to something else besides core .NET tech.
As a PHP programmer, I'm ok with putting that on my resume...but I will NEVER put Drupal on my resume. The day I have to do another site using Drupal is the day I quit programming altogether.

You're right, I was being facetious as it's the low-hanging fruit...

I've worked with Java, .Net, python, and PHP. Personally, I like MS stack the best because:

The tools are much better (though costly)
Support/community
Documentation
End-to-end seamless solution between ASP.Net, IIS, Sql Server, etc.
More/better paying jobs
Jobs tend to use more up-to-date tech (my observation only)

Now this is a biased opinion as most of my experience is in .Net, and it is the most recent too.

Matt Westwood · 2012-01-09 Reply Admin

qbolec:
I think we get near to some deep truth about the universe. It's somewhat like the question: how do you compile the first revision of your compiler. Or: where did they store the source code of svn?
The question is: How one can could hope to develop a good ticketing system without one at hand?

P.S. we use trello.com, which is like post-it cards on steroids.

Yeah, Trello works okay if you aren't going to get a great deal of tickets at any one time. More than about 50 and it starts to get a bit unwieldy.

Matt Westwood · 2012-01-09 Reply Admin

C-Octothorpe:
Jan Jansen:
is this frist stuff still funny?
It only has to be funny to the retard that makes those posts...

Please show a little sensitivity. My son used to make posts, and let me assure you, it's no laughing matter to explain to a retard that for n posts you need only n-1 stretches of fence between them.

Abso · 2012-01-09 Reply Admin

Matt Westwood:
C-Octothorpe:
Jan Jansen:
is this frist stuff still funny?
It only has to be funny to the retard that makes those posts...

Please show a little sensitivity. My son used to make posts, and let me assure you, it's no laughing matter to explain to a retard that for n posts you need only n-1 stretches of fence between them.

Unless, of course, the fencing forms a closed shape.

2012-01-09 Reply Admin

What? No mention of Eventum?

For our needs, it works a lot better than some of the other alternatives that we played around with.

Setup and configuration was easy. Reporting suffices for management. It's fast, lightweight, and works for our needs. Won't be the right solution for everyone. Some systems are better at being customer facing than others. For us, we only use it internally.

http://forge.mysql.com/wiki/Eventum/

2012-01-09 Reply Admin

May i file a ticket about the ticketing system? Oh wait, sh***...

2012-01-09 Reply Admin

Dirty Dirty Daryl:
Spiceworks! Its free! And works quite well for my needs.
http://www.spiceworks.com

For helpdesk ticketing Spiceworks is free and works great for me too!

Now what does Larry think?

2012-01-09 Reply Admin

Any software that takes WEEKS to configure is no-go. It really shouldn't take IT professionals more than a day to configure a server. If your server software is really that hard to use, you're doing it wrong.

2012-01-09 Reply Admin

BAF:
"What's up with all the double quotes at the beginning of every paragraph?
"Only the first paragraph has it correct. >:[

Actually, it's done right except for the first paragraph. When quoted text spans multiple paragraphs, you put an opening quotation mark at the beginning of each paragraph, but you only put a closing one on the very last paragraph.

2012-01-09 Reply Admin

Argh, I have to amend that: the last paragraph is missing its closing quotation mark, so the first and last paragraphs are punctuated wrong.

2012-01-09 Reply Admin

C-Octothorpe:
Ryan:
I know you meant this as a joke, but I'm just curious which languages you wouldn't consider career suicide? Java and .NET are popular at the moment, but they (Java especially * 1000) are starting to be a little dinosauric. Usage of IIS is also dropping, signaling that people are moving on to something else besides core .NET tech.
As a PHP programmer, I'm ok with putting that on my resume...but I will NEVER put Drupal on my resume. The day I have to do another site using Drupal is the day I quit programming altogether.
You're right, I was being facetious as it's the low-hanging fruit...

I've worked with Java, .Net, python, and PHP. Personally, I like MS stack the best because:

The tools are much better (though costly)

Support/community

Documentation

End-to-end seamless solution between ASP.Net, IIS, Sql Server, etc.

More/better paying jobs

Jobs tend to use more up-to-date tech (my observation only)

Now this is a biased opinion as most of my experience is in .Net, and it is the most recent too.

Agreed. Forms development in java is primitive, to say the least.

2012-01-09 Reply Admin

Sorry, The real WTF isn't even remotely the code (the code is just plain failure). The real WTF is the management:

Cost to develop in house (conservative est.): $60k * 8 / 12 = $40,000 + yearly maintenance

Jira: $0 (10 users) - $8,000 (unlimited users) + support after the first year if you need it and 50% upgrade fee for new versions.

Bugzilla: Free

Others: Free, Cheap

Management: should be canned

2012-01-09 Reply Admin

Fedaykin:
Sorry, The real WTF isn't even remotely the code (the code is just plain failure). The real WTF is the management:
Cost to develop in house (conservative est.): $60k * 8 / 12 = $40,000 + yearly maintenance

Jira: $0 (10 users) - $8,000 (unlimited users) + support after the first year if you need it and 50% upgrade fee for new versions.

Bugzilla: Free

Others: Free, Cheap

Management: should be canned

Don't forget relitively inexpinsive dual-shoring option and get custum, hand-crafting system.

2012-01-09 Reply Admin

olius:
ReadyDesk is a flat $200 purchase. Bugzilla is free. Either one can be configured by a semi-competent developer in at most a few weeks.

This site wouldn't exist if there were that many semi-competent developers out there.

Nor would much commercial software out there today.

I think there are plenty of Semi-competent developers and some of them appear here. There's also a veritable plethora of less than semi-competent developers.

Assuming about 5 million people across the globe consider themselves developers of some sort (and arbitrary figure - scale it if you think there are more or less), that would mean: There are less thsn 100 fucking awesome developers less than 1,000 Awesome ones Less than 1,000,000 Competent ones (possibly significanbtly less) Less than 2,000,000 Semi-Competent That still leaves somewhere around 2 million (possibly more) people who consider themselves competent but should in fact never go near anything that even resembles a computer who would make this site viable. Additionally, in any of the groups, developers who think they belong in a higher group than they are tend to be extremely dangerous and will create WTF's a lot (that is, if an awesome developer thinks he's a fucking awesome developer, look out!!). As we've seen before, the ones who are competent or above, quickly get bored of the shit in their workplace and move on leaving the semi-competent and incompetent to become the most senior staff and ultimately have enough power to create WTF's a lot (People don't seem to realise that X years experience means jack shit - so you've stayed in this industry? That doesn't prove you're even remotely competent).

Incidentally:

the incompetent ones are dangerous because they think they know what they're doing.
The Semi-Competent ones are less dangerous, because they tend to realise their limitations and are frustrating because they don't back themselves and expect the rest of the team to do the bulk of their work (but they're relatively harmless).
The Competent ones are the ones who insist on creating their own Data Structures, Date classes etc instead of using their own - they will occasionally have WTF's....
The Awesome ones often spend more time creating tools to save time than actually engaging in their work - they make some pretty cool shit, but they don't appear to get much work done (although as a legacy they probably leave the place more efficient than they entered (much tedium has been replaced with little programs that automate some their daily tasks). The efficiency is noticed only after they leave, because they have originally created the efficiency for their own use (ie so they can complete a 3hr task in 10 minutes and then bludge for 2hrs 50min).
I must admit, (bar myself) I've never worked with a fucking Awesome developer, but I suspect part of the reason that they're rare is that they quickly get disillusioned with IT and realise the problems (in process, in management, in anything) are too big for one person to handle, and are frustrated that their expertise is often ignored - simply because others don't understand it. A select few of these end up founding their own companies (and even fewer survive or even thrive) while the rest become so upset with the whole thing that they give up IT and choose careers that require less thinking - like driving trucks or working in retail.....

Nagesh · 2012-01-09 Reply Admin

Jan Jansen:
is this frist stuff still funny?

Only if I am making first comment. Otherwise it is not funny.

2012-01-09 Reply Admin

It seems to me that after 2 months of full time work, they've spent enough on Chad-hours to buy a professional time tracking system. Not only that, they've spent enough to buy a professional all-in-one development tool to track product development documents, requirements, planning, bugs, tickets, and time tracking.

Of course, I suppose you can always get away with the 2-week rule.

Nagesh · 2012-01-09 Reply Admin

Nagesh-fake:
Fedaykin:
Sorry, The real WTF isn't even remotely the code (the code is just plain failure). The real WTF is the management:
Cost to develop in house (conservative est.): $60k * 8 / 12 = $40,000 + yearly maintenance

Jira: $0 (10 users) - $8,000 (unlimited users) + support after the first year if you need it and 50% upgrade fee for new versions.

Bugzilla: Free

Others: Free, Cheap

Management: should be canned
Don't forget relitively inexpinsive dual-shoring option and get custum, hand-crafting system.

What cheap company are you work for? Why imitate me, you faker?

DCRoss · 2012-01-09 Reply Admin

Fedaykin:
Management: should be canned

I think you put an extra "n" in there somewhere.

C-Octothorpe · 2012-01-09 Reply Admin

DCRoss:
Fedaykin:
Management: should be canned

I think you put an extra "n" in there somewhere.

What the hell is Maagement?

2012-01-09 Reply Admin

the beholder:
Anon:
It had countless odd bugs like forms disappearing, lists not populating correctly, edits not actually saving, and so on.

But on the bright side, they could use the same system to report problems with itself!

That's a win-win in my book.
What's the point of flooding the database?

A good test database with real data is really valuable! Proves the product is really scalable (or not!)

2012-01-09 Reply Admin

Nagesh:
Nagesh-fake:
Fedaykin:
Sorry, The real WTF isn't even remotely the code (the code is just plain failure). The real WTF is the management:
Cost to develop in house (conservative est.): $60k * 8 / 12 = $40,000 + yearly maintenance

Jira: $0 (10 users) - $8,000 (unlimited users) + support after the first year if you need it and 50% upgrade fee for new versions.

Bugzilla: Free

Others: Free, Cheap

Management: should be canned
Don't forget relitively inexpinsive dual-shoring option and get custum, hand-crafting system.

What cheap company are you work for? Why imitate me, you faker?

Here in Hyderabad, al company is being cheaply manufacture (because of deficience in Rupee comared to U.S. dollar). Also, Indian employe wiling to work long hour w/o a/c and elektricty sometime.

C-Octothorpe · 2012-01-09 Reply Admin

Nagesh:
Also, Indian employe wiling to work long hour w/o elektricty.

If all the offshore software development shops worked without electricity, this site wouldn't exist...

Nagesh · 2012-01-09 Reply Admin

C-Octothorpe:
Ryan:
I know you meant this as a joke, but I'm just curious which languages you wouldn't consider career suicide? Java and .NET are popular at the moment, but they (Java especially * 1000) are starting to be a little dinosauric. Usage of IIS is also dropping, signaling that people are moving on to something else besides core .NET tech.
As a PHP programmer, I'm ok with putting that on my resume...but I will NEVER put Drupal on my resume. The day I have to do another site using Drupal is the day I quit programming altogether.
You're right, I was being facetious as it's the low-hanging fruit...

I've worked with Java, .Net, python, and PHP. Personally, I like MS stack the best because:

The tools are much better (though costly)

Support/community

Documentation

End-to-end seamless solution between ASP.Net, IIS, Sql Server, etc.

More/better paying jobs

Jobs tend to use more up-to-date tech (my observation only)

Now this is a biased opinion as most of my experience is in .Net, and it is the most recent too.

C#.NET trying very hard to be like Java

plaidfluff · 2012-01-09 Reply Admin

Tractor:
So what about trac?

I was coming here with the sole purpose of mentioning Trac. It's very easy to set up, it's free, and it has great integration with various source code repositories (svn built-in, git and perforce with plugins).

Nagesh · 2012-01-09 Reply Admin

Nagesh-fake:
Nagesh:
Nagesh-fake:
Fedaykin:
Sorry, The real WTF isn't even remotely the code (the code is just plain failure). The real WTF is the management:
Cost to develop in house (conservative est.): $60k * 8 / 12 = $40,000 + yearly maintenance

Jira: $0 (10 users) - $8,000 (unlimited users) + support after the first year if you need it and 50% upgrade fee for new versions.

Bugzilla: Free

Others: Free, Cheap

Management: should be canned
Don't forget relitively inexpinsive dual-shoring option and get custum, hand-crafting system.

What cheap company are you work for? Why imitate me, you faker?
Here in Hyderabad, al company is being cheaply manufacture (because of deficience in Rupee comared to U.S. dollar). Also, Indian employe wiling to work long hour w/o a/c and elektricty sometime.

You are lying. I am posting from air-condituned office. 24 hours electricity and good canteen services. Food delivered to desk, if required. Also they make movie ticket arragements. Come work for good CMM level 5 company insted of sweat shop.

dkf · 2012-01-09 Reply Admin

Dazed:
Is Mantis that bad? I used it with one organisation a couple of years ago, and I don't recall any major problems. Admittedly we were only logging a few issues per week.

Going from weak to strong issues:

First point: it's ugly. OK, not a big score against it but it grates after a few months.

Second point: it has odd behavior when on an intermittent network. (Pain in the backside when you're moving between meetings with laptop in tow.)

Third point: you configure it by writing PHP.

Fourth point: it's got a poor default model of issues; for any truly serious work you're going to have to configure it (e.g., adding extra columns to the datamodel so that you can restrict the view more effectively).

If you want to spend a month or two configuring it, applying new stylesheets, etc. then I bet it will be quite good. On the other hand, you can just pony up and buy a copy of JIRA, get something that does more and works with much less effort. JIRA is very good; it is resource-hungry (what with being written in Java and all) but hardware's not too big a problem unless you're dedicated to being disgustingly cheap. I want to develop my own code, not my bugtracker's.

Nagesh · 2012-01-09 Reply Admin

Meep:
Nagesh:
Nobody has mention fogbugz.

Great, you had to link to Spolsky. Now it will be weeks before we can get the stench of smug self-satisfaction out.

I don't get this. It is one of the best products today.

2012-01-09 Reply Admin

the beholder:
What's the point of flooding the database?

That's the beauty of it -- the database drains itself as it loses data. Homeostatis!

2012-01-09 Reply Admin

Nagesh:
Meep:
Nagesh:
Nobody has mention fogbugz.

Great, you had to link to Spolsky. Now it will be weeks before we can get the stench of smug self-satisfaction out.

I don't get this. It is one of the best products today.

He's referring to the masturbation fest that is Joel's blog, not the actual products.

ooblek · 2012-01-09 Reply Admin

Wow, this is so freakishly parallel to what some people who have "done this before" are trying to push through where I work.

In my case, however, the ticket system is just included as part of the larger system that does just about everything you could imagine. It pisses me off that people come up with shit on powerpoint, present it to the management for approval with no technical input, then drop it on my lap to make it happen.

2012-01-09 Reply Admin

Yeah, because you need salesforce to have a help desk system. $50/month per user of the system. Or you can get a free or almost free system that won't take a month to set up.

emurphy · 2012-01-09 Reply Admin

z:
Bert:
The real The TRWTF

I like where this is going!

I don't. "Data processing, data data processing", anyone?

2012-01-10 Reply Admin

Redmine? Anyone?

Watson · 2012-01-10 Reply Admin

Mark:
http://forge.mysql.com/wiki/Eventum/

Even before I follow that link I hear warning bells going off.

Severity One · 2012-01-10 Reply Admin

QJo:
Severity One:
As I said, stuff like JIRA isn't as expensive as having to set up one of these supposedly 'free' ticketing systems that take an inordinate amount of time to set up properly. Unless your company is the IT equivalent of Liechtenstein (but without the banks), a couple of hundreds [insert favourite currency here] should not be a problem.
You malign Bugzilla unfairly.

I once compared JIRA, Bugzilla and Mantis. You try setting up Bugzilla on a Solaris system from scratch. Unless things have changes radically in the last few years, there is a bizarre amount of things to install, and at the end you get a less than attractive user interface.

Pim · 2012-01-10 Reply Admin

emurphy:
z:
Bert:
The real The TRWTF
I like where this is going!
I don't. "Data processing, data data processing", anyone?

He means he expects posts like "In reality the real TRWTF is ..." and "But really, in reality the real TRWTF really is ..." etc.

I don't think that's going to happen though. We're all much too mature in here.

2012-01-10 Reply Admin

The brother of the friend of my friends mum is making thousands of dollars by creating awesome ticket systems at home!

Start earning today! \o/

causa: Cause and effect

2012-01-10 Reply Admin

whiznat:
"TRWTF is that management listened to him. I would have expected them to insist that he salvage everything they had already invested in this steaming pile, with strict instructions not to start from scratch.

TRWTF is that he didn't give them an estimate of a month, ashcan the code and install and configure an existing package. Come on the proper thing to do in this situation is lie through your teeth about what your going to do, then deliver.

Pim · 2012-01-10 Reply Admin

gizmore:
The brother of the friend of my friends mum is making thousands of dollars by creating awesome ticket systems at home!
Start earning today! \o/

causa: Cause and effect

I can't believe that Askimet didn't catch this!

Troubling Trouble Ticketing

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