The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2024-05-13 Reply Admin

ah, jackcess. I once used it in an AWS lambda to transfer the data from an Access db to a Db in the AWS environment. The code and the architecture were admittedly horrible. and I hope this code is not still in use, but OTOH I wouldn't doubt that one of my successors will eventually post my code to TDWTF

Steve_The_Cynic · 2024-05-13 Reply Admin

In fact, there's barely anything in here that really merits a WTF. Barely.

Dunno. Maybe it's my lack of specific knowledge of these things, but this line of code makes me ... uneasy:

private static Logger sysLog = Logger.getLogger(ResultLoader.class);

Is it normal to pass a class object to a logger?

2024-05-13 Reply Admin

It does (in its own special way) propogate the exception - after a transformation <wink>..

In some languages

Thing x = null;
x.Method();

is perfectly Valid provided Method is not virtual, and does not acces any member variables :) :) :)

Kamil Podlesak · 2024-05-13 Reply Admin

Yes, Logger.getLogger(ResultLoader.class) is not just a normal thing, it is the correct way to initialize logger.

Dragnslcr · 2024-05-13 Reply Admin

I'm assuming that the logging system has a map of object -> logger, so that you can handle logging in different ways (such as logging at different levels, or have separate log files) in different parts of the system. That line would just mean that all logging from the class is kept together. It isn't a WTF on its own, though it may be part of a WTF (such as if they have the logging set up to use a different file for every class).

2024-05-13 Reply Admin

@Log // use Lombok everyone else does.

2024-05-13 Reply Admin

The class passed to getLogger is used for a couple things:

By default, it's included in the log line.
Minimum log levels can be configured per class or package (typically used to selectively enable debug or trace logging while tracking down a bug).
Various integrations can consume it; Datadog, for example, can use it as one of its search filters.

2024-05-13 Reply Admin

nobody commenting on the last Result result = new Result(00, new Date(), consumptions); that doesn't get returned?

2024-05-13 Reply Admin

This may be because the snippet was changed a bit to not reveal too much information, but in the line instantiating the "Result" object: Where does the "consumptions" come from? And why is the "result" object not used/returned after creation?

2024-05-13 Reply Admin

The whole story became clear when I saw the programmer call it "Jackcess" in a comment. I was immediately on his side.

I'm reminded of the client I worked with for some years. They weren't small. Perhaps 400 employees. But at some point, not too long before I began helping them, someone made the decision to maintain all company data in Access. Then came the need to have a company website on their intranet. Somehow, they were managing employees and manufacturing traffic via Access. Such a nightmare. Little by little I migrated to SQL server, but the data was still a mess. Fun times.

2024-05-13 Reply Admin

Steve, we often either pass a class or the name of a class to the Logger. There is a configuration file which can set the logging level based on package (or subpackage!) or class. The configuration file also indicates where to log the messages (syserr, sysout, or some file) and the format to use.

Lyle Seaman · 2024-05-13 Reply Admin

Remy, unless that snipped-out code has side-effects, loadResult will do nothing except iterate over the entire table. Also, we can't see what "consumptions" is (but if new Result has a side effect there it's a gigantic wtf) and the "yearConsumption" map just falls out of scope. It's plenty wtfy.

2024-05-13