The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

The irony of this is, everyone who wrote this type of crap passed an interview.

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

Charles400:
Q: Knock, knock. A: Who's there? Q: Fuck. A: Fuck who? Q: Fuck WHOM!

awesome.

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

Throwable t = new Throwable(); if (t.getStackTrace()[1].getClassName().contains("What")) { System.out.print(" the Fuck"); }

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

AT:
... It may, perhaps, be rude to point out grammatical errors in an email or off-the-cuff forum posting. However, the comment here was directed at the author of an article posted for consumption by thousands of readers of a for-profit online publication. It's not unreasonable to expect the authors of these articles to comprehend and follow the basic grammar rules of their chosen language while mocking the language abuses of others.

Agreed. The context is relevant. Someone is paid to edit this stuff, and putting out a glaring error in the title like that is pretty poor. On the other hand, this particular thread has been thrashed to death now, (and perhaps I'm not helping!) so perhaps you're getting bored of all this grammar talk. On the other hand again, you can just ignore it and move on - interwebs bytes are cheap. Oh, and I love the idea of "Wham are you doing"!

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

pvr:
This is not actually uncommon. I have a plethora of Access databases (ugh) that connect to Oracle (ugh again) and the "security" is to actually check if the login is coming from Acess.exe.
It took me nearly 2 days to figure out why I couldn't login via SQL*Plus (ugh!!@#!@#!@#!@#!) but could through the "Application".

And no, they won't let me change that.

copy sqlplus.exe Acces.exe

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

I hope you fine folks realise that Alex and co are just trolling the fuck out of you all on a daily basis!!! Figure it out already, we have these who/whom arguments every other day and yet Mark has just gone and forgotten it all and accidentally employed a commonly corrected misuse of the word 'who' - in the title no less! Bullshit! You're all being trolled! He's reading this now and cackling in the way only a heartily fed troll could.

JamesQMurphy · 2009-01-26 Reply Admin

pvr:
This is not actually uncommon. I have a plethora of Access databases (ugh) that connect to Oracle (ugh again) and the "security" is to actually check if the login is coming from Acess.exe.
It took me nearly 2 days to figure out why I couldn't login via SQL*Plus (ugh!!@#!@#!@#!@#!) but could through the "Application".

And no, they won't let me change that.

So anytime you need to check the contents of a table in Oracle, you have to open Access and attach the table? That is unfortunate. That's like programming with boxing gloves on. It's a difficult task and it makes you feel like punching someone.

KenW · 2009-01-26 Reply Admin

AT:
It may, perhaps, be rude to point out grammatical errors in an email or off-the-cuff forum posting. However, the comment here was directed at the author of an article posted for consumption by thousands of readers of a for-profit online publication. It's not unreasonable to expect the authors of these articles to comprehend and follow the basic grammar rules of their chosen language while mocking the language abuses of others.

Perhaps true, if you were being charged for access to the content of this supposedly for-profit publication. You're not, and the site sells absolutely nothing to you in order for you to receive said access, either. So being a pedantic a-hole can't be justified here; they're still a-holes.

YourNameHere · 2009-01-26 Reply Admin

No one mentioned the additional WTF. Why wasn't the exception invalid_calling_pgm fully commented so the user can figure out what going wrong. Here is a starting suggestion.

/* Hack Warning: invalid_calling_pgm is used in crap.cs
 because I couldn't figure out a better way a doing this. 
It checks exe name of the calling application. 
I've heard you can use the interweb to find better ways of
solving programming challenges. 
Some day I'll learn about that.
....

*/

JamesQMurphy · 2009-01-26 Reply Admin

YourNameHere:
No one mentioned the additional WTF. Why wasn't the exception invalid_calling_pgm fully commented so the user can figure out what going wrong. Here is a starting suggestion.
/* Hack Warning: invalid_calling_pgm is used in crap.cs
 because I couldn't figure out a better way a doing this. 
It checks exe name of the calling application. 
I've heard you can use the interweb to find better ways of
solving programming challenges. 
Some day I'll learn about that.
....
*/ 

At least he wasn't throwing divide by zero.

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

not_a_real_name:
Beldar the Phantom Replier:
...the exe name is prepended by .vshost.exe...
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
I think you may not be aware it has two alternative meanings.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/prepend

I think you may not be aware that the first meaning is rare and nonsensical in this context, and the second meaning results in a very odd filename of ".vshost.exesomeexecutable".

The word you're looking for is "append".

WhiskeyJack · 2009-01-26 Reply Admin

Kevin:
It is rude to make bodily noises in polite company, but it is also rude to comment on someone else's bodily noises. See where I'm going with this?

Maybe try Beano?

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

Voodoo Coder, Leo, ih8u, NSCoder: The "whom" expression is colloquial, hearkening to the days of operator-assisted telephone switching. The headline is intended to be a cute allusion to it. The grammatical WTF does not belong to the content writer.

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

Just change the exe name of SQL*Plus to Access.exe and have at!

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

[quote user="http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/000095399/functions/exec.html"] The requirement on a Strictly Conforming POSIX Application also states that the value passed as the first argument be a filename associated with the process being started. Although some existing applications pass a pathname rather than a filename in some circumstances, a filename is more generally useful, since the common usage of argv[0] is in printing diagnostics. In some cases the filename passed is not the actual filename of the file; for example, many implementations of the login utility use a convention of prefixing a hyphen ( '-' ) to the actual filename, which indicates to the command interpreter being invoked that it is a "login shell". [/quote]So it's far from unprecedented that an app might tamper with argv[0] when launching another, and indeed it is far from unprecedented that it should be used as a cheap and crappy substitute for some sort of proper parent-child IPC... [/quote]

This is a SQL stored procedure, not a POSIX application. A remote SQL database should never depend on the OS running some application.

The SQL database is an agnostic data-store. It should send some data set in response to a query. Stored procedures ought to be limited to some data transformations.

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

notme:
TRWTF is the article's headline. It should read "Who Should I Say is Calling?". The word "whom" is only for indirect objects, as in "Whom can you trust?", or "Whom should I tell you called?".

Well... no.

Whom is for object, both direct and indirect.

And, well, both of you examples were for direct objects...

If you are going to complain about someone doing something incorrectly(even though you know what they meant) you really ought to correct them correctly.

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

Sounds like one of those shops where if you can't reproduce the bug running in debug mode with the IDE then the bug isn't a real bug but short between the keyboard and chair :)

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

Did Leonard Cohen say "whom" or "who" ? I'd call this artistic licence (spelling ? I'm French. We're pretty anal on grammar here too)...

On the other side, I'm pretty sure he said "shall", not "should".

Anyway.

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

kastein:
whoa. whose idea was THAT?! it reminds me of a few programs I've seen that act different if you run them via a symlink or directly... making your app decide how to behave based on argv[0] considered harmful.

There is a lot of programs out there that do practically the same thing - encryption/decryption, compression/decompression, etc., where really, having separate executables is a waste of space, waste of memory, and honestly, duplicated code. One program to do it would suffice, but there are those who'd prefer the program be descriptive - gzip to compress, gunzip to decompress, for example. Why have two copies when one would do, but gunzip by default will decompress the file, while gzip will compress. (You can alter the behavior using a command line argument).

In busybox's case, it's required. One single executable doing 100+ jobs is mandatory when you've got an itty-bit of RAM and itty-bit of storage space (a few megs). A single executable means it's only loaded once in memory and can perform basically all tasks. It's larger because it can do so much, but takes less RAM than running a bunch of tools at once, and is smaller than the equivalent collection of utilities if you had them all separate.

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

our database code is not only dependant...

... perhaps the original coder passed his job interview because he knew how to spell a commmon word like dependent?

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

not_a_real_name:
Beldar the Phantom Replier:
...the exe name is prepended by .vshost.exe...
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
I think you may not be aware it has two alternative meanings.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/prepend

Oh, so you REALLY mean if .vshost.exe mentally weighs the exe name. I didn't know your vshosts were that smart!

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

Spelling Nazi:
commmon

:)

Captcha: commoveo

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

IF .. AND p_program_name <> '[executable name].exe' THEN
RAISE invalid_calling_pgm;

END IF;

This security attempt is easliy fooled. Just rename sqlplus.exe to p_program_name.exe and you are in.

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

A few more WTF's:

If PL/SQL does as I suspect case-dependent string comparisons, the code is going to mysteriously break even if the name is okay but somebody prettied up the name into mixed-case "CashRegister.Exe".
as others have mentioned there are an infinite number of variations of the name string that map to the same name: ./cashregister.exe, ../Bin/cashregister.exe, ../Debug/cashregister.exe

undrline · 2009-01-26 Reply Admin

Matt S.:
IF .. AND (p_program_name <> '[executable name].exe' || p_program_name <> '[executable name].vshost.exe') THEN
RAISE invalid_calling_pgm;

END IF;
Problem solved. Just Do What It Takes.

I was looking for this. 10 to 1 that it was patched just like that.

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

Surely, he's not the only one cracking up when reading all this. Anywayz, I think I leveled up my grammar just by reading this...

schad · 2009-01-26 Reply Admin

Nitpicking Loser:
Matt S.:
IF .. AND (p_program_name <> '[executable name].exe' || p_program_name <> '[executable name].vshost.exe') THEN
RAISE invalid_calling_pgm;

END IF;
Problem solved. JustDo What It Takes.
You do realize that this code will now always raise the invalid_calling_pgm exception? Is that what you call "problem solved"?

Life Is Short. Simply add this to the conditional:

... OR p_program_name = '[executable name].vshost.exe'

See how easy it is? An alternative solution would be Learn To Deal and accept that you simply can't run the program from inside the IDE. After all, it's important to Be Environmentally Conservative.

Don't be discouraged. You'll get it soon!

Satanicpuppy · 2009-01-26 Reply Admin

Walleye:
A crude attempt at security?

If so, it's the worst way to go about it. Just set up a specific database user/role that has access to that stored proc, and then use that role in the program.

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

OggJoshua:
Voodoo Coder, Leo, ih8u, NSCoder: The "whom" expression is colloquial, hearkening to the days of operator-assisted telephone switching. The headline is intended to be a cute allusion to it. The grammatical WTF does not belong to the content writer.

OK, but it looks like you're the only one who got that joke... P.S. Ha ha ha ha ha.

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

KenW:
AT:
It may, perhaps, be rude to point out grammatical errors in an email or off-the-cuff forum posting. However, the comment here was directed at the author of an article posted for consumption by thousands of readers of a for-profit online publication. It's not unreasonable to expect the authors of these articles to comprehend and follow the basic grammar rules of their chosen language while mocking the language abuses of others.

Perhaps true, if you were being charged for access to the content of this supposedly for-profit publication. You're not, and the site sells absolutely nothing to you in order for you to receive said access, either. So being a pedantic a-hole can't be justified here; they're still a-holes.

Then I assume you would apply the same standard to any ad-supported, content-producing site and consider it unremarkable to find a similar disdain for grammatical matters at, say, www.washingtonpost.com or www.newyorktimes.com?

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

Beware debugger, it does things behind your back :-)

Voodoo Coder · 2009-01-26 Reply Admin

AT:
KenW:
AT:
It may, perhaps, be rude to point out grammatical errors in an email or off-the-cuff forum posting. However, the comment here was directed at the author of an article posted for consumption by thousands of readers of a for-profit online publication. It's not unreasonable to expect the authors of these articles to comprehend and follow the basic grammar rules of their chosen language while mocking the language abuses of others.

Perhaps true, if you were being charged for access to the content of this supposedly for-profit publication. You're not, and the site sells absolutely nothing to you in order for you to receive said access, either. So being a pedantic a-hole can't be justified here; they're still a-holes.

Then I assume you would apply the same standard to any ad-supported, content-producing site and consider it unremarkable to find a similar disdain for grammatical matters at, say, www.washingtonpost.com or www.newyorktimes.com?

You're comparing apples to baby wolverines.

I can't believe I would have to say this...but:

thedailywtf.com != The New York Times

Grammar Nazis = pedantic a-holes

Seriously, you need a better argument to justify this kind of correction. It'd be a little different if it was written in the kind of grammar you find in an email from a Nigerian Prince with extra money to move...but this is a common error, and likely an intentional one...

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Anyone that develops in Visual Studio should have a full understanding of the Visual Studio host process and when and how it should be used (and I hope you realise that it does a lot more than just add 'vshost' to the filename!). Accordingly, any good VS user should understand that their executable will have a different name when running through the IDE, and possibly under other circumstances as well. The WTF here is that some moron hard-coded a value that could change at runtime. That's not a WTF, it's just a fact of life when working with crap developers (you may detect that I speak from experience here).

you're a crap developer?

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

pvr:
This is not actually uncommon. I have a plethora of Access databases (ugh) that connect to Oracle (ugh again) and the "security" is to actually check if the login is coming from Acess.exe.
It took me nearly 2 days to figure out why I couldn't login via SQL*Plus (ugh!!@#!@#!@#!@#!) but could through the "Application".

And no, they won't let me change that.

Just make a copy of sqlplus.exe and rename it to Acess.exe and run, Oracle will now let you connect. I hope this is not a security feature, Oracles documentation specifically states that this is a totally stupid thing to do!

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

Cecil:
not_a_real_name:
Beldar the Phantom Replier:
...the exe name is prepended by .vshost.exe...
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
I think you may not be aware it has two alternative meanings.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/prepend

I think you may not be aware that the first meaning is rare and nonsensical in this context, and the second meaning results in a very odd filename of ".vshost.exesomeexecutable".

The word you're looking for is "append".

Or, if you don't like the word "append", the OP could have said "the exe name is prepended TO [not by] .vshost.exe..."

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

Anon Ymous:
snoofle:
Ok folks, simple grammar rule for who/m:
Insert "he" or "him" at the first point after who/m where it makes sense. If "he" makes sense, use who; if "him" makes sense, use whom.

Whom Should I Say is Calling? Whom [Should I Say (He/Him) is Calling]? --> he --> Who

Whom is it? Whom [is it (he/him)]? -> him -> Whom

Your second example is incorrect.

Correct: Who is it? He is it. It is who? It is he.

This is an example of predicate nominative, in which the nouns on both sides of the verb are nominative.

A problem can sometimes arise when the two nominatives each take a different form of the verb. In these cases, the verb should agree with the subject (who or what the sentence is directly about).

Correct: It am I. I am it.

Incorrect: It is I. I is it.

But surely the subject is different in both these phrases. I am it is not exactly the same thing as It is I.

The answer to "Who is it?" is "It is I" (not I am it, and not It am I) - IT is the subject, much like I.T. is the subject here, so why we digress into grammar is beyond me.

On the other hand, "Who am I? Why, of course, I am IT"

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

not_a_real_name:
Beldar the Phantom Replier:
...the exe name is prepended by .vshost.exe...
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
I think you may not be aware it has two alternative meanings.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/prepend

I didn't read the link, but I thought the point being made was that the program name is prepended to not prepended by .

OMG Am I becoming a grammar Nazi?

Captcha: capio

TRWTF is that there is probably a small group of people on these forums who are not insanely annoyed by this post.

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

NSCoder:
The Real WTF is the misuse of 'whom' in the title.

Who or whom gives a $!#%?

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

Voodoo Coder:
ih8u:
NSCoder:
The Real WTF is the misuse of 'whom' in the title.

Can we drop the grammar check? I do this too -- quietly. I think it's fun to constantly be testing my mad grammar skillz. It's like the interweb is Cato to my Inspector Clouseau.

However, I don't prance around showing off my knowledge.

Seriously...as soon as I read the title of this article I thought "Well crap...whether it's correct or not, there will be a group of insufferable know-it-alls who will point and laugh to show how sharp and witty they are"

Seriously, ya social mutants: It is intrinsically rude to point out grammatical errors. I am aware that the internet is not at the apex of courtesy, but for chrissake...the grammar checks are getting a little ridiculous around here...

You're too sensitive, I like having my grammar corrected. Can't see a problem with being corrected.

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

Voodoo Coder:
AT:
KenW:
AT:
It may, perhaps, be rude to point out grammatical errors in an email or off-the-cuff forum posting. However, the comment here was directed at the author of an article posted for consumption by thousands of readers of a for-profit online publication. It's not unreasonable to expect the authors of these articles to comprehend and follow the basic grammar rules of their chosen language while mocking the language abuses of others.

Perhaps true, if you were being charged for access to the content of this supposedly for-profit publication. You're not, and the site sells absolutely nothing to you in order for you to receive said access, either. So being a pedantic a-hole can't be justified here; they're still a-holes.

Then I assume you would apply the same standard to any ad-supported, content-producing site and consider it unremarkable to find a similar disdain for grammatical matters at, say, www.washingtonpost.com or www.newyorktimes.com?

You're comparing apples to baby wolverines.

I can't believe I would have to say this...but:

thedailywtf.com != The New York Times

Grammar Nazis = pedantic a-holes

Seriously, you need a better argument to justify this kind of correction. It'd be a little different if it was written in the kind of grammar you find in an email from a Nigerian Prince with extra money to move...but this is a common error, and likely an intentional one...

Has he been talking to you too? We might be related, if we both stand to inherit the same money. Let's meet sometime. I'll bring the same Bank details I already gave him.

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

snoofle:
Ok folks, simple grammar rule for who/m:
Insert "he" or "him" at the first point after who/m where it makes sense. If "he" makes sense, use who; if "him" makes sense, use whom.

Whom Should I Say is Calling? Whom [Should I Say (He/Him) is Calling]? --> he --> Who

Whom is it? Whom [is it (he/him)]? -> him -> Whom

If you haven't learned Haskell yet, you are definitely ready to.

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

Voodoo Coder:
thedailywtf.com != The New York Times
Grammar Nazis = pedantic a-holes

I think you meant:

Grammar Nazis == pedantic a-holes

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

Amen

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

grammernazee:
OggJoshua:
Voodoo Coder, Leo, ih8u, NSCoder: The "whom" expression is colloquial, hearkening to the days of operator-assisted telephone switching. The headline is intended to be a cute allusion to it. The grammatical WTF does not belong to the content writer.
OK, but it looks like you're the only one who got that joke... P.S. Ha ha ha ha ha.

In that case the WTF is that it should be "shall". As in, "Whom shall I say is calling?"

I've never heard the phrase from a telco employee but it is common elsewhere. Just going by memory you'll hear it in The Jerk, My Fair Lady, and probably a few other movies. I've seen it in books too. Sometimes the character saying the line was telco operator but writers also seem to like having butlers use the phrase.

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

Voodoo Coder:
but for chrissake...the grammar checks are getting a little ridiculous around here...

How do you like the grammer in this:

IF .. .AND. {p_program_name != '[executable name].exe')

Seriously, a web site about programming, and you think that grammer checks are ridiculous?

BentFranklin · 2009-01-26 Reply Admin

Maybe people here like to pick apart other peoples' syntax because they spend the other 99% of their day having a compiler pick apart theirs.

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

I could really go for a lesson in grammar right about now.

Anybody? No? Aawww...

2009-01-26 Reply Admin

Asiago Chow:
grammernazee:
OggJoshua:
Voodoo Coder, Leo, ih8u, NSCoder: The "whom" expression is colloquial, hearkening to the days of operator-assisted telephone switching. The headline is intended to be a cute allusion to it. The grammatical WTF does not belong to the content writer.
OK, but it looks like you're the only one who got that joke... P.S. Ha ha ha ha ha.

In that case the WTF is that it should be "shall". As in, "Whom shall I say is calling?"

I've never heard the phrase from a telco employee but it is common elsewhere. Just going by memory you'll hear it in The Jerk, My Fair Lady, and probably a few other movies. I've seen it in books too. Sometimes the character saying the line was telco operator but writers also seem to like having butlers use the phrase.

I didn't say that it should be "shall". That was someone else. In any case, that would be incorrect: "I shall" is the future tense; "I will" is the imperative, which is what should be used here. So the correct grammar (and I know you don't care) is actually "Who will I say is calling?".

DaveK · 2009-01-26 Reply Admin

I see why they call you "Bad Context"... here, let me fix the quoting for you.

Bad Context:
DaveK:
B:
I'd defend it via the many programs on the typical hard drive that have some sort of "if (!strcmp(argv[0], "something"))" magic going on. For example, vi, vim, ex, and view are the same program that behaves differently depending on invocation. tex, latex, pdflatex, and a half-dozen other programs are all just different paths in the pdftex executable.
But this is not the same thing. This is a stored proc that changes its behaviour according to argv[0], which is more like a library function.

This is a SQL stored procedure, not a POSIX application.

<clouseau>Zat is wat I said, eedeeot!</clouseau>

SenTree · 2009-01-26 Reply Admin

OggJoshua:
Voodoo Coder, Leo, ih8u, NSCoder: The "whom" expression is colloquial, hearkening to the days of operator-assisted telephone switching. The headline is intended to be a cute allusion to it. The grammatical WTF does not belong to the content writer.

Of course - Ernestine ! I knew it sounded familiar.

Addendum (2009-01-26 18:40): Oops - got confused which POS editor I was using !

Whom Should I Say is Calling?

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