• gleemonk (unregistered)

    This is just an internal comment. Those whiny DailyWTF idiots will never see this once NodeBB is implemented.

  • (nodebb)

    A bigwig. He might have been a big Whig as well (physically large and a member of one or more of several now-defunct political parties), but if he's a self-important high-level executive or similar, he's a bigwig.

  • (nodebb)

    Ah yes the "big client" who, when they see something they dislike, will screech like babies and try to bully you, knowing full well that they just have to go up the chain and someone, somewhere, will be so frightened by the prospect that they will PULL THEIR CONTRACT RIGHT NOW that the entire company will bend over backwards to kiss their asses. Sometimes I wish companies would stand up to these bullies (both internal and external; it doesn't have to be a BIG CLIENT it could just be another department) and say NO.

  • Appalled (unregistered)

    "Hey HealthLords, Blow ME. This was from a disgruntled employee we fired 5 years ago. If it offends you take your business elsewhere. Otherwise Delete the offensive rule and get a life. Shit happens." And Yes, I have said as much many times in my career and although often admonished, never been fired. Guess I'm too valuable.

  • operagost (unregistered)

    Sounds like Paul was right about HealthLords.

    Back out of a contract because your feelings were hurt by a comment left by a former employee of the vendor? It's not even a public humiliation-- no one saw that comment except the vendor and the customer. Put yourself through the pain of conversion because of spilled milk?

  • Brian (unregistered)

    Aww, Steve beat me to it.

    These HealthLords must be quite ancient and powerful indeed if they're big Whigs.

  • Quality matters (unregistered)

    I think the main point why HealthLords are so angry is not the message itself, but the fact that this message was not found by the vendor. I would cancel the contract because that shows me that the vendor has no quality checking, no tests with whole code coverage, maybe a lot of dead and ancient code that could be triggered in special circumstances and that has the possibility to destroy or manipulate vital patient data. Because of that a patient could get wrong medication or treatment and die.

  • Carl Witthoft (google) in reply to Quality matters

    Maybe, but you KNOW that the wrong people will get blamed for this multi-level WTF of code mistakes.

  • nb (unregistered)

    Reminds me of a time I worked in a semiconductor lab. We had two techs that really didn't get along, both who had foul mouths.

    One day we had customers from a Japanese client in the lab, and they were looking at our latest product. There was a $24M contract being considered.

    Tech 1 noticed customers and promptly buttoned his mouth. Tech 2 was pissed about something and let a couple f bombs drop about his f-ing probes, and the f-ing scope not having a high enough sample rate. Tech 1 told tech 2 "Hey dude, we have customers in the lab, you should watch what you say." The response cost $24M and one job:

    "What does it matter, they don't speak English anyway."

  • Bill T (unregistered)

    I've heard stories (directly from the developers involved) where comments have come back to bite. Not quite like this, but when the source has to be released for regulatory approval, variable names can cause some raised eyebrows.

  • GGlass (unregistered) in reply to Bill T

    Indeed. I did a database implementation representing a multi-part QA review form that had questioned divided into "Phases" like "evaluation phase" and "key value phases". There was a reporting table that recorded three values for each phase, score, scale and leakage (a monetary estimate of money lost due to mistakes). The database naming convention was to use the first four letters of the phase and the metric. So Evaluation phase became Eval_score, eval_scale and eval_leakage. It worked fined until the analysis phase came up. Anal_score, Anal_scale, Anal_leakage.... for some reason they didn't catch that so its still in production today.

  • EarlyLife (unregistered) in reply to GGlass

    In an earlier job we had a product with its name ending as "Analyzer". Our sales preps then went to our partner's BIG conference where they had put a lot of money into promoting our product. Flyers, merchandise, flags at the street, you name it. And everywhere, 'y' had turned into 'i'.

  • jmm (unregistered) in reply to Quality matters

    Doubtful that the people who were upset about this knew enough about software and programming best practices to understand this line of reasoning.

    So let's assume that this sort of code quality is the exception... right?

  • jmm (unregistered)

    My favorite was the test text entered by a client, "I understand that by signing this, my child may die." Amusing, but very glad it was them who entered it, and not us.

    On the other hand, someone once became very upset when they found a default error page that had a picture of a monkey on it. To this day, I have no idea what the big deal was.

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to jmm

    I understand that my child may die by writing their name in this Death Note.

  • (nodebb) in reply to jmm

    Clearly the picture should have been of a kitten.

  • Greg (unregistered) in reply to DocMonster

    i don't think this will happen. the lure of the money it too great. a workarround is to stall until you can provide your own and only solution. because client's solution would cost the company too much. :-)

  • Mozzis (unregistered)

    If this proposal was arrogant, then so are most software ideas.

  • (nodebb)

    I'm surprised they weren't placated by a simple "I'm pleased to announce that Paul is not on our payroll anymore."

  • Ulysses (unregistered)

    Lolz. All the uncreative spam fits this particular PAUL TEST article nicely.

  • Huh (unregistered)

    Forward ref - what on earth is "ILOG"? Is it a custom IVR programming language? What exactly? A little bit of explanation would help. Some sort of metalanguage? Why did the new system that replaced ILOG read the original configuration instead of being refreshed from the final export from ILOG?

    Anyone know? Anyone else just a touch confused like I am?

  • jay (unregistered)

    Seriously? Every place I've ever worked, people make nasty comments about clients and suppliers that are not intended for them to hear. I take it for granted that my present employer's client and suppliers make nasty comments about us now and then. If I accidentally heard or read such a comment -- saw it show up in test data, accidentally got copied on an email, whatever -- I can't imagine I'd go ballistic and demand we cut off relations with that company. I'd laugh and move on.

  • jay (unregistered)

    I once worked on a billing software package. One feature was to produce "past due" letters to customers who were, well, past due. The text of the letters was customizable. I included several sample letters to show how to do it. One of them said, "Please please pay your bill. I have a wife and a child and a dog and a cat to support." And sure enough, we had a customer who copied the sample letter to his real letter, and then complained that this text was "unprofessional" and "inappropriate".

  • Paul (unregistered)

    Gregor?

  • keris99.com agen sakong online (unregistered)

    I'm surprised they weren't placated by a simple "I'm pleased to announce that Paul is not on our payroll anymore."

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