• (cs) in reply to rmg66
    rmg66:
    Duston:
    Is a tab 3 spaces or 4?

    Four goddammit, Four!

    And ALL tabs should be auto replaced with spaces! And All Code should be written in non-variable width Fonts!

    I use a width of 2, with spaces of course (tab characters are evil).

    Also, best coding font ever is Bitstream Vera Sans Mono (8 point): http://www.bitstream.com/font_rendering/products/dev_fonts/vera.html

  • berk (unregistered) in reply to rmr
    rmr:
    The stuff programmers argue over (often on this site) is extremely petty.

    No it isn't.

  • (cs) in reply to nobody
    nobody:
    At least, when my stuff fails, nobody dies.

    True... I doubt if computer bug has ever led to massive phone or power outages. I'm sure they've never caused multi million dollar investments to slam into a far off planet. Its probably not possible to write code in such a way to accidentally iradiate someone enough that they die.

    Yeah you are right. Worst case scenario, no one dies, maybe the network just comes to a grinded halt which results in billions of dollars of productivity.

    Of course I don't think liscensing is the answer either.

  • (cs) in reply to CynicalTyler
    CynicalTyler:
    rmr:
    For whatever reason, we see absolutely nothing wrong with arguing over the correct position of curly braces for hours.

    You feeble-brained, grub-headed, chair-spinning nasal discharge! It's:

    if(condition) { ... }

    not:

    if(condition) { ... }

    And I'll fight anyone who types it otherwise!!!

    MEMO: Attention folks. We have had a rash of keyboard failures in the IT department. He have tracked the problem down to too much use of the "Enter" key. Please refrain from using the "Enter" key as much as possible. We have discovered one way to minimize the use of the "Enter" key, is to not place an carriage/return and line feed combnination at the end of any line that begins a new block of code.

    One nice side effect from doing this is an enormous space savings in disk space. Our accounting department has calculated a .00043% savings in diskspace. This will allow us to save one half a penny each year in purchases of new disk space.

  • (cs) in reply to Samah
    Samah:
    your mom:
    it's LED! LED!!!!! "lead" pronounced how you meant it is the name of an element. that's all. sorry for the intrusion. really, i am. it's a sickness...
    Actually, either is correct. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=led

    I am not the best grammarian. But I don't see anything on the quoted page to lead me to believe one can substitue "lead" for "led." "led" is past tense/past particple for "lead." It says "led" can be replaced with leading and leads, but not with lead. KG can lead a team of developers. Or he leads a team, but he can't "has lead teams".

    "lead" is NOT the past tense or past particple of "lead."

  • (cs) in reply to nobody

    Hold on mister -- you're trying to dump the quality issue on the construction workers. The Boston Globe said that the first thing the contractors did was to field-test the design and immediately reported to the design firm that the design was suspect. I know construction workers and continually digging up and remaking the city are a perennial joke, but they weren't at fault in this case.

  • SoupDog (unregistered)

    Sounds each member of my current business team.

  • JarFil (unregistered)

    OMG! That happened to me! What a deja vu... if it wasn't an endocrynologist but a (anonymized), I would swear I know who this guy is.

    All this story happened to me exactly the same way. He had an awful Access app, wanted to "clean it a bit", then sell it. Even had some weird plan on how to profit from it. Only it was completely un-sellable, and after repeatedly trying to show him what was wrong, all I got was some kind of talk down about how medicine is so complex and programming so simple. Even the outcome was exactly the same in my case: we split ways, and he still was trying to find someone to get on the job.

    Really, if this was the same guy, ¡what a way of knowing he's still trying to sell that horrible app! xD

    Either that, or it's some kind of a doctor related disease ^o^

  • random_coder() (unregistered)

    Oh God - I thought I was alone. We have a customer in similar straits - in perpetual development of a medical app. They've got a nightmare of a network that they won't clean up, have bounced from AIX to Windows to Linux in their development target (with no code actually being written)...

    It's good to know that I'm not the only one suffering the insufferable.

  • (cs) in reply to RevMike
    RevMike:
    rmr:
    ContractorInLivingHell:
    . . .So much talent is wasted on "brightest kid in the room" competition and pettiness the likes of which is rarely seen in other lines of work (apart perhaps from the "World of Art"...). . .

    You obviously haven't spent much time around programmers! For whatever reason, we see absolutely nothing wrong with arguing over the correct position of curly braces for hours. The stuff programmers argue over (often on this site) is extremely petty.

    I absolutely agree. The braces issues are minor compared to the choice of editor.

    MY $0.02: vi ... forever

  • (cs) in reply to
    :
    Yah, but any government exam will be fifteen years out of date and test for whatever's politically powerful.
    Ahaha, I can just imagine being tested for competence in ADA.
  • (cs) in reply to aaron
    aaron:
    I had to deal with similar BS at a previous job working for a municipality. We had a police chief that moonlighted as an IT consultant and a fire chief that knew enough to be dangerous. I would routinely get calls from the fire dept lackeys telling me that there was a problem and that the chief had "already looked at it" which generally made the problem worse.

    for example: we installed a second computer. they said nothing about putting it on the network, but the fire chief went out and purchased a router-switch from walmart and hooked it up to use for both those computers. Needless to say, that caused some problems with software that was mapped directly to the IP of the first computer. Who gets called to clean up this mess that he created? the alleged "inept IT department".

    If someone hires me as a specialist, I would think it's because they believe I know what I'm doing. What's with the micromanagement then? Just tell me what you want and let go!

    captcha: "pirates" arrrgggh!

    I hope you were clever and issued an support incident report to your management every time ....

  • (cs) in reply to domukun367
    domukun367:
    rmg66:
    And All Code should be written in non-variable width Fonts!

    Now you're starting to scare me... my faith in basic human intelligence can't let me even imagine code written in variable width fonts.

    That depends on how variable you consider the width differences of bold/italic in many fonts (in my experience very few editors and no professional IDEs will correct for the skew).

  • (cs) in reply to chrismcb
    chrismcb:
    Samah:
    your mom:
    it's LED! LED!!!!! "lead" pronounced how you meant it is the name of an element. that's all. sorry for the intrusion. really, i am. it's a sickness...
    Actually, either is correct. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=led

    I am not the best grammarian. But I don't see anything on the quoted page to lead me to believe one can substitue "lead" for "led." "led" is past tense/past particple for "lead." It says "led" can be replaced with leading and leads, but not with lead. KG can lead a team of developers. Or he leads a team, but he can't "has lead teams".

    "lead" is NOT the past tense or past particple of "lead."

    Oops, I misread (not misred) the page. My bad :/

  • (cs) in reply to foxyshadis
    foxyshadis:
    domukun367:
    rmg66:
    And All Code should be written in non-variable width Fonts!

    Now you're starting to scare me... my faith in basic human intelligence can't let me even imagine code written in variable width fonts.

    That depends on how variable you consider the width differences of bold/italic in many fonts (in my experience very few editors and no professional IDEs will correct for the skew).
    Eclipse does. So does PL/SQL Developer IIRC. TOAD does but it tends to clip the edges of the characters in some cases.

  • (cs) in reply to Rich
    Rich:
    diaphanein:
    Ever heard of HIPPA?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIPPA

    No. Is it anything like HIPAA?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIPAA

    Rich

    Yes.

    Both links open the same wikipedia article

  • operagost (unregistered) in reply to Chris Davis
    Chris Davis:
    Alex, are you an Al Franken listener? If you're not I'd like to point out that kidding-on-the-square is a phrase Franken has been trying to spread.
    Someone listens to Al Franken?
  • Brady Kelly (unregistered) in reply to rmr
    rmr:
    You obviously haven't spent much time around programmers! For whatever reason, we see absolutely nothing wrong with arguing over the correct position of curly braces for hours. The stuff programmers argue over (often on this site) is extremely petty.
    That's absurd. There is nothing to argue about; they belong below the line declaring the block they enclose.
  • paulg (unregistered)

    Wow. Flashbacks to events with my family. I'm the black sheep in a family of doctors. Instead of going into the honored profession, I decided to waste my time in the IT industry. Doctors know all, do all and can see all. They have taken the god complex to a whole new level. To make up for it though - there is nothing as pathetic as a sick doctor. Even worse than a sick kitten.

  • Anonymous Coward (unregistered) in reply to berk
    berk:
    rmr:
    The stuff programmers argue over (often on this site) is extremely petty.

    No it isn't.

    yes it is.

  • Jim (unregistered) in reply to rmg66

    "All Code should be written in non-variable width Fonts!" Amen brother, amen

  • Franz Kafka (unregistered) in reply to foxyshadis
    foxyshadis:
    domukun367:
    rmg66:
    And All Code should be written in non-variable width Fonts!

    Now you're starting to scare me... my faith in basic human intelligence can't let me even imagine code written in variable width fonts.

    That depends on how variable you consider the width differences of bold/italic in many fonts (in my experience very few editors and no professional IDEs will correct for the skew).

    I use emacs. What is this 'variable width' you speak of?

  • (cs) in reply to diaphanein

    "And by signing off on the design, the engineer is assuming legal responsibility for his/her design. When was the last time you saw a programmer do that? "

    I have to carry expensive insurance against negligence in my code ( professional indemnity policy ), otherwise I don't get to do the contract. So yes, I effectively assume legal responsibility for it. Not that I need bullying into doing a proper job, you understand...

  • Leo (unregistered) in reply to Samah

    Ever tried Proggy Clean et al?

    http://www.proggyfonts.com/index.php?menu=download

    Yes, I'm as petty-minded as we all :)

  • ad (unregistered) in reply to Shan

    As my name was Shannon

    Sounds like you decided to "correct" yourself rather than tangle with the demons over at accounting! :)

  • Rimbaud (unregistered) in reply to Dan L
    As a Java/C++ programmer, people somehow think it's appropriate to ask me to spend 2 hours cleaning viruses and spyware off their computer for them. Free of charge of course.

    I found the easy way out of this: use Linux or Mac (or Amiga or OS/2) as your OS and then just say you don't know how to use Windows :-)

    Works brilliantly.

    I moved my mum to Ubuntu as well :-)

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to rmg66
    rmg66:
    Duston:
    Is a tab 3 spaces or 4?

    Four goddammit, Four!

    And ALL tabs should be auto replaced with spaces!

    If I want to put 4 spaces, I will tape space 4 times, or create a macro. But I type tab, and spect a tab to put into code. If your editor is broken, change editor, avoid broken editors.

    Imagine this code:

    if (whatever){ foo(); }

    now with withespace visible, and lines:

    00: if (whatever){[CR] 01: [TAB]foo();[CR] 02: }[CR]

    If you are on the line 01, and you press the [right] key, you move to the f on foo.

    Now checks this monstruosity:

    00: if (whatever){[CR] 01: [SPACE][SPACE][SPACE][SPACE]foo();[CR] 02: }[CR]

    Now to get into "f", I have to press [right][right][right][right]

    Yea, I know people have broken editors. Get a right one, god dawn!. Theres even text hints that help Vi and Emacs to know about the tab size the original author made.

  • Martijn (unregistered) in reply to spamparranoid

    Since programming is largely a logic thing, most people think they can do it. Truth is that logical thinking is a rare trait in humans.

  • DamnedYankee (unregistered) in reply to Francois
    Francois:
    I don't work with Access, so here goes a "n00b question": If you declare a boolean as the PK for a table, the DB should limit you to 2 entries, right? Does Access check constraints and FK's at insert time?
    Primary and Unique are different attributes for an index.
  • (cs)

    Hello Folks,

    I guess you haven't got the real WTF. It is this:

    The famous doctor didn't argue with knowledge or years of experience. He simply said "you don't have license". And THAT is creepily. :-)

    In it deepest core it means, that watching E.R. is indeed enough education to get a medical degree.

    I read a fantasy book a couple of weeks ago. A crown of prices and princesses where wondering why all of their mothers died by birthing them. And a wizard meant "It is because you are rich. Your mother hired a doctor for the birth."

    Regards

  • mdmyass (unregistered) in reply to Kaosadvokit
    Kaosadvokit:
    The truly sad part is that the doctor is a more accomplished/skilled software developer than many that [attempt to] make a living as such.

    Google the following names:

    Dr. Ray Muzyka Dr. Greg Zeschuk Dr. Augustine Yip

  • (cs) in reply to Francois
    Francois:
    I don't work with Access, so here goes a "n00b question": If you declare a boolean as the PK for a table, the DB should limit you to 2 entries, right? Does Access check constraints and FK's at insert time?

    3 entries. True, False and FileNotFound.

  • (cs) in reply to Samah
    It's LED! LED!!!!! "lead" pronounced how you meant it is the name of an element. that's all. sorry for the intrusion. really, i am. it's a sickness...
    It's a sign of the times that because I've seen this so many times (and glossed over it) I actually had to use Ctrl-F on the page...
  • (cs)

    I write blocks like this:

    if ( condition )
    {
        do_stuff();
    }
    

    with 4-space indent.

    Functions that take multi-line parameters I also indent but the opening and closing parentheses are half-indented (2 spaces) so:

    std::transform
      (
        myVector.begin(),
        myVector.end(),
        std::back_inserter( target_vector ),
        std::bind2nd( some_function, param )
      };
    

    Sometimes in transform I will allow the first two parameters on the same line, i.e. the begin() and end(), and similarly if any are "grouped".

    I may also always leave a blank line (no code) on either side of such a statement (although it may be a line with an opening or closing brace on it).

  • justleftthecompanythankgoodness (unregistered)

    you think software development is bad - try dealing with a no-longer-practicing specialist doctor who decided to start a medical server company, and decides to jump into every technical email thread.

    "The packet loss problem is significant. A 1% packet loss causes a significant reduction in throughput for regular TCP/IP, Sometimes 30%! Raw DICOM studies fail competely with 2% packet loss."

    headdesk

    Trust me, it's no easier from the operations side.

    captcha:craaazy

  • Who, me? (unregistered) in reply to chrismcb
    chrismcb:
    ...maybe the network just comes to a grinded halt which results in billions of dollars of productivity.

    Considering how much web browsing goes on in my office, I must agree with this statement.

  • NameNotFoundException (unregistered) in reply to Earl Purple
    Earl Purple:
    I write blocks like this:
    if ( condition )
    {
        do_stuff();
    }
    

    with 4-space indent.

    Functions that take multi-line parameters I also indent but the opening and closing parentheses are half-indented (2 spaces) so:

    std::transform
      (
        myVector.begin(),
        myVector.end(),
        std::back_inserter( target_vector ),
        std::bind2nd( some_function, param )
      };
    

    Sometimes in transform I will allow the first two parameters on the same line, i.e. the begin() and end(), and similarly if any are "grouped".

    I may also always leave a blank line (no code) on either side of such a statement (although it may be a line with an opening or closing brace on it).

    How exceedingly interesting! I do it differently! Not only that, but I also use comments.

  • prilmeie (unregistered) in reply to Jax

    I normally don't reply to daily WTF's but this time ... It is so true, I have sworn myself to never never never ever work with medical doctors again. They are the worst I know it all I have ever come across.

  • (cs) in reply to Steamer2k

    [quote user="Steamer2k"][quote user="diaphanein"]One of the reasons I believe software developement should be a licensed profession. i.e. You have to pass a government exam before you're allowed to practice in certain areas.[quote]

    That's a nice theory--unfortunately it would mean that software would be managed by the same people that run the DMV.[/quote]

    You mean it isn't already?

    Anyway, at least with the DMV it would only be a state-wide exam. You could always move state if you fail ... which might come in handy to a few of us on this site.

    Hmmm. The quoting system appears to have screwed up. Perhaps I should have tried "Reply" instead.

  • Marek (unregistered) in reply to rmg66
    rmg66:
    Duston:
    Is a tab 3 spaces or 4?

    Four goddammit, Four!

    And ALL tabs should be auto replaced with spaces! And All Code should be written in non-variable width Fonts!

    What the hell have Fonts (in CAPS, even) to do with the source code???

    captcha: burned (in Hell I suppose)

  • (cs) in reply to Shan
    Shan:
    cconroy:
    At my first job, when I first registered for medical insurance, some data monkey must have mistyped and entered me as female instead of male. I found out when I started getting postcards telling me I was overdue for my pap smear.

    Not exactly related, but I had a similar problem a few years ago, relating to my name and gender. I'd just started a new job and Christmas came around and everyone got their bonus's/gifts. In the office we had about 20-30 guys and two girls, so when the gifts went round there were 3 HUGE gift baskets and 20-30 envelopes containing gift certificates. As my name was Shannon, one of the lackys in accounts (another building) had assumed I was a girl and I'd recieved a rather large hamper complete with wine, chocolate, food, champagne and a gift voucher for a department store, where as all the "men" had recieved a low denomination voucher for a local hardware store. Talk about double standards.

    I finally made the decision to correct the accounts department when I started to recive information on Maternity leave, and company sponsered pap smears, and mammogram notices in my in tray.

    I think you missed a stellar opportunity to mess with people's heads. Just imagine the following:

    You: Hi Doc, the company told me to come in for my pap smear Doc: Um, you know you're a guy, right? You: Yeah, but HR recommended I have it done, and I want to be a good employee... Doc: (wtf?)

    Just imagine the explanations on the insurance forms...

    Doc: severe problem encountered taking sample from patient...

  • (cs) in reply to Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward:
    berk:
    rmr:
    The stuff programmers argue over (often on this site) is extremely petty.

    No it isn't.

    yes it is.

    File not found!

    (sorry, couldn't resist)

  • lol @ forum software (unregistered)

    he's the same guy that developed this forum software!

  • thorin (unregistered) in reply to Rich

    Personally I'm a fan of GNU style. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_True_Brace_Style#GNU_style

  • (cs)

    my style (c)*

    void func(BOOL*r)
    //this function does very little
    {
      for (int i=0;i<10;i++) 
      //iterate over array
      {
        if (r[i]==FILE_NOT_FOUND) i=11;
      }
    }
    

    *you may only use my style if you have explicit permission from me. This isn't some K&R-like slap-dash approach, this art form took time to develop.

  • Eam (unregistered)

    I'm an Allman, you can K&R if you want, just let it bump like you got Scott Storch tied up in the trunk.

    Now that Visual Studio has a built-in pretty printer, it doesn't bother me which style people use. Actually, it never really bothered me unless they used some completely brain-dead style.

    There is one thing I don't understand, though. I use Allman so the braces line up vertically, but what's with putting else/catch/finally on their own lines?

    if (yeah) { } else { }

    It seems a bit excessive to me.

  • (cs) in reply to cklam
    cklam:
    RevMike:
    rmr:
    ContractorInLivingHell:
    . . .So much talent is wasted on "brightest kid in the room" competition and pettiness the likes of which is rarely seen in other lines of work (apart perhaps from the "World of Art"...). . .

    You obviously haven't spent much time around programmers! For whatever reason, we see absolutely nothing wrong with arguing over the correct position of curly braces for hours. The stuff programmers argue over (often on this site) is extremely petty.

    I absolutely agree. The braces issues are minor compared to the choice of editor.

    MY $0.02: vi ... forever

    2 cents? And I always thought that vi is for free.

  • (cs) in reply to spamparranoid

    The Real WF(tm) is the lack of sonic screwdriver: flip the switch and poof, no bugs

  • Rich (unregistered) in reply to doc0tis
    doc0tis:
    if you are developer for a phone company where your input device is a telephone you probably don't need to know alot (if anything) about SQL injection.

    UPDATE online_user_data SET redirect_no='2221113333' WHERE account_name='jhacker'; DELETE FROM billing_data; --';

    I worked out SQL injection on my own about two months after I started learning it from scratch. It was a natural extension of "Is it possible to execute multiple SQL statements in a single query?"

    Rich

  • nosay (unregistered)

    The only customer who never paid me was a doctor (with an effed-up Xenix box...).

    Captcha: gotcha

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