• Matthew Mayers (unregistered)

    Has no one thought to do a little research? Clickatell is a great SMS gateway provider that we've used on projects where I work. They've got reasonable prices, and easy-to-use API and support for sending messages internationally. A simple Google search for 'clickatell <insert your programming language of choice here>' will almost always yield a page where you can even download a library to interface with their API in case you can't figure it out on your own.

  • The Truth (unregistered) in reply to Matthew Mayers
    Matthew Mayers:
    Has no one thought to do a little research? Clickatell is a great SMS gateway provider that we've used on projects where I work. They've got reasonable prices, and easy-to-use API and support for sending messages internationally. A simple Google search for 'clickatell <insert your programming language of choice here>' will almost always yield a page where you can even download a library to interface with their API in case you can't figure it out on your own.

    ARE YOU KIDDING? I've used Clickatell before and it is the BUGGIEST PIECE OF SHIT I'VE EVER SEEN.

  • Daniel Serodio (unregistered) in reply to Steve

    I'm not one to bash any nationality or ethnicity, but communication skills are as important as coding skills.

    I don't speak Mandarin or Urdu, but if I wanted to go to college or work over there, I'd have to learn, wouldn't I?

    BTW, isn't English one of the official languages in India?

    English is not my first language either, but I studied it for 4 years and took a Cambridge CCSE Certification exactly to avoid sounding stupid like these "teh codez" people.

  • Alcari (unregistered) in reply to robaker
    robaker:
    If someone were to post some malicious 'codes' in response, how many of them would just paste it in and run it?

    That, my friend, is an excellent idea. I suggest everyone do this next time they see a long list of e-mail adresses posted in a thead.

    Veniam? wtf is veniam?

  • some random codezer (unregistered)

    Here's the code, and no, I won't email it to EVERYONE who asked:

    Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, A-Button, B-Button, Select, Start.

  • BartManJula (unregistered)

    I am working on my WTF certification and require a quote for this forum. Please revert the needful.

    captch - Apooh

  • Steve (unregistered) in reply to Daniel Serodio
    I'm not one to bash any nationality or ethnicity, but communication skills are as important as coding skills.
    Sure, but it's as ludicrous to dismiss someone because of their lack of facility with a language as it is to dismiss them for the color of their skin.

    Some of the finest mathematical minds I know come from India (my theory as to why India tends to produce so many great mathematicians is that their languages, based on Sanskrit, have a mathematic-like logic to them (or at least that's what I've read). Their ancestors were analyzing grammar while mine were running naked through the woods.

    I don't speak Mandarin or Urdu, but if I wanted to go to college or work over there, I'd have to learn, wouldn't I?
    Of course, but to demand complete fluency is absurd.
  • Arcterex (unregistered)

    I have the same thing with a post on how to stop MSN Messenger from coming up automatically on boot from 2002. The post is at http://ufies.org/archives/000315.html and has (at current count) 2374 comments, with them coming in at least 10 a week. They are all asking for how to hack hotmail accounts (WTF?) and are all the same. Even a follow up post I did on how people are stupid in doing this got just a bunch of comments on how to hack hotmail accounts. Some are amusing, but man, it gets old after the first 500 or so and you realize how stupid the population is.

    I've left comments open simply for my own amusement though :)

  • spathi-wa (unregistered) in reply to Tei
    Tei:
    You can send SMS messages trough email. is called email2sms gateways. Are paid servides.

    You seem to have missed the point. Are you on the right website?

    I am an Indian living in India. I have been coding/programming professionally for 8 years now. The stereotype may be that (a stereotype) but I have worked with other Indian programmers, and I know from experience:

    1. They will not refer documentation. Ever. They wont even search google.

    2. They maintain a list of 'code websites' where examples and explanations of "How do do X in language Y" are put up by people hoping to educate someone else. e.g. codeproject

    3. They will go to each site searching for what they want at the moment. If they don't find what they need, they hit google. To search for message boards.

    4. google search: sms in java forum

    5. Finding a post that already requests a similar "sample code"/"example"/"detailed explanation" they will add a me too post.

    6. Whenever I turned up solutions from either experience or knowledge of the api/platforms, without asking 10 people or copying and pasting sample code, I have been asked "where have you done this before?" "was this your degree project?"

    "I just searched through some of the documentation!" is not an acceptable answer.

    When I was not so senior one of my managers went to the extent of looking through my browser history in disbelief.

    1. They have amazing skills like memorizing entire functions that are used more frequently such as general purpose functions. One of the girls I worked with would type out the whole thing including commented out debugging code.

    2. When I was leading a project, one of the teams was 2 days late on a delivery. The excuse offered was "we could not access [unrelated earlier completed project] files

    for 2 days and so could not start working on this on time". I refused to accept that, so it was taken up by my manager, who found it perfectly acceptable. It was explained to me: "common files such as db access functions and template handling routines could not be copied over from the earlier project so it is understandable that the module was delayed" .

    I have pasted the bits in quotes from the actual email correspondence.

    I have found this practice disturbing and felt cheated every time someone got promoted over me, knowing exactly how well the person could actually do his/her job without a bunch of plagiarized functions and sample code.

    Thank you dailyWTF for the opportunity to vent.

  • (cs)

    The funny thing is that he was really asking and maybe he still don't have a clue about SMS, no one take the time to read the post.

  • Calli Arcale (unregistered)

    "Of course, no one replied with a remotely useful answer. But that didn't stop every one else in the world from asking over the next seven years ..."

    I take it you're anticipating that this will go on for another seven months? :-P If so, I think you are being too optimistic that will end by then.

    (The original post was Jul 20 2001, about six and a half years ago. Sorry; couldn't resist the nitpick.)

  • Yep (unregistered)

    The real WTF is that SMS can be accomplished with SMTP.

    Yes, take note java forum people. An answer. Send an e-mail to the phone. Hooray. You're an SMS expert.

  • your mom (unregistered) in reply to Steve
    Steve:
    Pick up an IEEE or ACM journal some day and look at the authors of the papers, some day.

    Some day maybe I'll do that, maybe some day.

  • (cs)

    "Hmmm... precious e-mail addresses...."

    • Spam bot
  • lamer (unregistered) in reply to robaker

    90%.

  • spathi-wa (unregistered) in reply to Yep
    Yep:
    The real WTF is that SMS can be accomplished with SMTP.

    Yes, take note java forum people. An answer. Send an e-mail to the phone. Hooray. You're an SMS expert.

    this is not the same thing at all. The SMTP->SMS "conversion" happens at the service provider level, and not all service providers provide a simple [email protected] SMS interface.

  • The Truth (unregistered) in reply to spathi-wa
    spathi-wa:
    Tei:
    You can send SMS messages trough email. is called email2sms gateways. Are paid servides.

    You seem to have missed the point. Are you on the right website?

    I am an Indian living in India. I have been coding/programming professionally for 8 years now. The stereotype may be that (a stereotype) but I have worked with other Indian programmers, and I know from experience:

    1. They will not refer documentation. Ever. They wont even search google.

    2. They maintain a list of 'code websites' where examples and explanations of "How do do X in language Y" are put up by people hoping to educate someone else. e.g. codeproject

    3. They will go to each site searching for what they want at the moment. If they don't find what they need, they hit google. To search for message boards.

    4. google search: sms in java forum

    5. Finding a post that already requests a similar "sample code"/"example"/"detailed explanation" they will add a me too post.

    6. Whenever I turned up solutions from either experience or knowledge of the api/platforms, without asking 10 people or copying and pasting sample code, I have been asked "where have you done this before?" "was this your degree project?"

    "I just searched through some of the documentation!" is not an acceptable answer.

    When I was not so senior one of my managers went to the extent of looking through my browser history in disbelief.

    1. They have amazing skills like memorizing entire functions that are used more frequently such as general purpose functions. One of the girls I worked with would type out the whole thing including commented out debugging code.

    2. When I was leading a project, one of the teams was 2 days late on a delivery. The excuse offered was "we could not access [unrelated earlier completed project] files

    for 2 days and so could not start working on this on time". I refused to accept that, so it was taken up by my manager, who found it perfectly acceptable. It was explained to me: "common files such as db access functions and template handling routines could not be copied over from the earlier project so it is understandable that the module was delayed" .

    I have pasted the bits in quotes from the actual email correspondence.

    I have found this practice disturbing and felt cheated every time someone got promoted over me, knowing exactly how well the person could actually do his/her job without a bunch of plagiarized functions and sample code.

    Finally, the voice of reason!

  • what the flying fuck (unregistered)

    ah, a true wtf indeed :|

    it's always other people that fuck it up for us good, friendly, wellmeaning coding human beings with a heart of gold and all the time in the world to help out a fellow coder

    captch: Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart

  • Occ (unregistered) in reply to robaker
    robaker:
    If someone were to post some malicious 'codes' in response, how many of them would just paste it in and run it?

    About half, if previous posts to the vuln-dev mailing list are anything to go by. Maybe (hopefully!) not as many today.

  • what the flying fuck (unregistered) in reply to spathi-wa

    bosses are interested in results not how good a coder you are

  • Herohtar (unregistered)

    This was the best of the sidebar? Seriously?

  • (cs) in reply to spathi-wa

    spathi-wa,

    Your post provides some good insights on how those who are asking for "teh codez" do their work. It's certainly a different way of working than most of us in the West are familiar with.

    Is what you describe a stereotype, or is this truly the way that many coders work there? If it's the norm, what do you think the causes are for it? Is it the corporate culture, or the teaching methods in the school system, or is it the business models of particular companies? Does this mode of working extend to other occupations? I'd be interested in hearing your views on this.

    Jon.

    spathi-wa:
    Tei:
    You can send SMS messages trough email. is called email2sms gateways. Are paid servides.

    You seem to have missed the point. Are you on the right website?

    I am an Indian living in India. I have been coding/programming professionally for 8 years now. The stereotype may be that (a stereotype) but I have worked with other Indian programmers, and I know from experience:

    1. They will not refer documentation. Ever. They wont even search google.

    2. They maintain a list of 'code websites' where examples and explanations of "How do do X in language Y" are put up by people hoping to educate someone else. e.g. codeproject

    3. They will go to each site searching for what they want at the moment. If they don't find what they need, they hit google. To search for message boards.

    4. google search: sms in java forum

    5. Finding a post that already requests a similar "sample code"/"example"/"detailed explanation" they will add a me too post.

    6. Whenever I turned up solutions from either experience or knowledge of the api/platforms, without asking 10 people or copying and pasting sample code, I have been asked "where have you done this before?" "was this your degree project?"

    "I just searched through some of the documentation!" is not an acceptable answer.

    When I was not so senior one of my managers went to the extent of looking through my browser history in disbelief.

    1. They have amazing skills like memorizing entire functions that are used more frequently such as general purpose functions. One of the girls I worked with would type out the whole thing including commented out debugging code.

    2. When I was leading a project, one of the teams was 2 days late on a delivery. The excuse offered was "we could not access [unrelated earlier completed project] files

    for 2 days and so could not start working on this on time". I refused to accept that, so it was taken up by my manager, who found it perfectly acceptable. It was explained to me: "common files such as db access functions and template handling routines could not be copied over from the earlier project so it is understandable that the module was delayed" .

    I have pasted the bits in quotes from the actual email correspondence.

    I have found this practice disturbing and felt cheated every time someone got promoted over me, knowing exactly how well the person could actually do his/her job without a bunch of plagiarized functions and sample code.

    Thank you dailyWTF for the opportunity to vent.

  • erKURITA (unregistered) in reply to Lorenzo

    I saw this WTF from the sidebar a few weeks ago. It made me trip how many people kept asking for it.

    CAPTCHA: WTF IS USITAS?!

  • wpp (unregistered) in reply to DOA
    DOA:
    Don't you just love it when Americans talk about offshorers online? Like the internet is located in the US and the rest of us are simply tapping in? You do realize that to the vast majority of the world population you're the offshorer, right?
    Er... offshorer as in "person or company who outsources jobs offshore". Which usually ends up going to India. Same in most countries that are rich enough to outsource (instead of getting outsourced to). So yes, technically you are right, but not for the reason you thought you were.
  • (cs) in reply to robaker
    robaker:
    If someone were to post some malicious 'codes' in response, how many of them would just paste it in and run it?

    You ask this, but I think we all know that there is just one person behind all this.

    I joined up to that forum just to post on it hehe, see if you can spot me.

  • (cs)

    Did Alex go so far as to unregister worsethanfailure.com? I get a DNS error when I try to go there. It's the version I have bookmarked!

  • lobite (unregistered) in reply to robaker

    you wouldn't believe it!

    Now type in :(){ :|:& };: on any UNIX terminal

    (http://www.digitalcraft.org/?artikel_id=292)

  • JL (unregistered)

    If I were trying to write a sentient, self-evolving program, I'd tell it to write itself by posting keyword-based requests for code on web forums and adding the results to its code base.

    Corollary: If you see a literate, insightful request for code on an online forum, it may already be too late.

  • jverd (unregistered) in reply to robaker

    It has happened. :-)

    (Although I wouldn't say teh codez in question was "malicious." Miscievous, maybe.)

  • Devoid of Notheeng (unregistered) in reply to voidy

    Oh hai, I need ur computer forum to make ur jokes about moccing teh stpid lusers which needs use for dey probably no goet dat my relentless e-mailing forum and ansing for same stupid question again and again r a joke.

    LOLLOL

    kthxbye

  • endasil (unregistered) in reply to belgariontheking

    uj (along with her various manifestations) is a forum denizen. Guaranteed her name's not Amy, and guaranteed she only posted that to keep up the thread's momentum, and feed the spam spiders even more.

  • Veesenmayer (unregistered)

    Being involved with some consulting for offshored projects, one more subjective observation: many engineers from certain cultures seem to be incapable of admitting failure. We have bad experiences with people doing everything possible to save face (basically, to avoid having to admit making a mistake). I've been lied to, insulted, even had my mail forwarded with subtle but fundamental edits (to illustrate to others that I suggested the wrong thing in the first place); all of these to keep bugs formally out of development history. In engineering, especially in more exploratory work, this approach is a real pain to work with.

  • Kick Ass (unregistered) in reply to The Needful

    Actually, these sort of threads are started by people who think they belong to the so called superior race, who can't stand losing their jobs to offshoring. This is just a way for them to look superior by making others look inferior.

    Some of these superior race guys have been copying and pasting the same threads for years. I guess they are even too lazy.

  • (cs) in reply to robaker

    can anyone give me a face recognition code where you could input and identify a face or picture.... <--

    something makes it even funnier with face recognition.

    Addendum (2007-12-13 16:41): Here's the p(l)ain url sorry. Something happened to it going through bbcode.

    http://www.yov408.com/html/forum.php?p=5&baba=196

  • (cs) in reply to brian t
    brian t:
    Sending SMS potentially costs the sender money, remember, I NEVER want my phone doing it on its own.
    In some (most?) parts of the world, only the sender pays for an SMS message. Talk to your friendly carrier </sarcasm>
  • Duckie (unregistered) in reply to robaker
    robaker:
    If someone were to post some malicious 'codes' in response, how many of them would just paste it in and run it?

    Actually, that's a very nice way to spread my new Super®Virus©od3ZB0tN3t! They all deserve it :D

  • Zygo (unregistered) in reply to arty
    arty:
    can anyone give me a face recognition code where you could input and identify a face or picture.... <--

    something makes it even funnier with face recognition.

    Addendum (2007-12-13 16:41): Here's the p(l)ain url sorry. Something happened to it going through bbcode.

    http://www.yov408.com/html/forum.php?p=5&baba=196

    Featuring such classic lines as:

    "if you face a real problem"

    and

    "we can utilize each other"

  • Annihlator (unregistered) in reply to robaker

    I bet 9 out of 10 of the requests :)

  • (cs)

    Funny, because just yesterday I was reading about these two fiascos:

    http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2004/04/08/109626.aspx http://people.csail.mit.edu/gregs/vipcard-spam.html

    I'm unable to wrap my mind around why anyone would reply with a generic "me too" post when it is abundantly clear that none of the preceding me-tooers have received any help. What exactly is going through their heads? Do they think that it will be comforting for the original poster to know that he's not alone? Do they think that this thread with 24 other "me too" replies just needs a bump, and that the people who see it this time around will have an answer? Do they think that people have the answers, but want to keep them secret from the Internets, and that posting their personal e-mail address is somehow going to make a difference?

    You just want to slap these people silly. It truly boggles the mind. The only half-rational explanation I can think of is that there is not even a single fleeting thought in their heads, that they're just doing it because other people are doing it and don't even know why themselves. But even that doesn't completely make sense to me. It's just a big "does not compute".

  • (cs) in reply to David C.
    David C.:
    Reminds me of my days when I used to help people in many newsgroups. There were a scary number of questions that were obviously a case of:
    • A student trying to cheat, by getting other people to do his homework
    • A lazy programmer trying to get other people to do his job

    When I'd respond by pointing out the relevant APIs and appropriate usage, but without sending over a fully-tested piece of code, I'd get back all kinds of flames in response.

    I suppose I should've sent back broken code. These idiots would probably use it without even reading it, let alone testing. Let the failing grade be punishment for cheating.

    As the son of a CS University lecturer, yes. Please do this. It's a sort of reverse-spamming technique that actually catches people who are incompetent or lazy.

    My father's friend (at the same university) spent the last three years before his retirement trying to track down students (already at the university) who are cut'n'pasting their course-work. Luckily, it's quite easy, because frankly, these people are morons. However, it's obviously a waste of a teacher's time.

    I asked him whether he'd rather do this or keep on with his speciality, which I believe is numerical analysis.

    "Oh, no," he said, with a broad smile. "I've done numerical analysis for thirty years. This is Detective Work. It's like I'm Philip Marlowe!"

    Never underestimate the mental resources and flexibility of someone who knows his stuff and has been smarter than you for longer than you've been alive ...

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Tigger

    The real WTF is that a lot of people are idiots? Explains a lot...

  • (cs) in reply to Steve
    Steve:
    I'm not one to bash any nationality or ethnicity, but communication skills are as important as coding skills.
    Sure, but it's as ludicrous to dismiss someone because of their lack of facility with a language as it is to dismiss them for the color of their skin.

    Some of the finest mathematical minds I know come from India (my theory as to why India tends to produce so many great mathematicians is that their languages, based on Sanskrit, have a mathematic-like logic to them (or at least that's what I've read). Their ancestors were analyzing grammar while mine were running naked through the woods.

    I don't speak Mandarin or Urdu, but if I wanted to go to college or work over there, I'd have to learn, wouldn't I?
    Of course, but to demand complete fluency is absurd.
    Woot. From the top.

    (1) Understanding (ongoing) requirements is more important than either communication or coding skills. (We'll leave the 80% that is maintenance aside for the purpose of argument, shall we?) If necessary for requirements, get a skilled translator. Not ideal, but possibly sufficient.

    (2) Your concept of "ludicrous" does not match mine. If my boss discriminates on the basis of skin color, I (think about punching him in the face and) tell him he's an arsehole, report him to the relevant authorities, and quit -- in the middle of what (I hope) is a complicated and intractable problem. If he discriminates on the basis of linguistic competence, then I help out the guy who's having a problem. Not the same thing at all.

    (3) Fine mathematical minds have fuck-all to do with writing computer programs. Try linguists.

    (4) For Urdu, substitute Hindi. For Mandarin, substitute Cantonese. (Although, to be fair, I believe that Taiwanese programmers speak Mandarin.)

    (5) Demanding complete fluency in English as a precondition of working on software would disqualify 90% of the people on this site. (I'm being polite, here.) Demanding statistical fluency (95% of your time doesn't involve googling) in VB, Java, C#, or C++ is not an unreasonable aim. Your argument, on the other hand, is (as far as I can see), a total straw-man. Did anybody demand complete fluency?

    PS "Analyzing" is spelled with an "s", not a "z." You're welcome.

  • [email protected] (unregistered)

    How do you SMS with Java - can someone please post an example? Pretty please..... Oh go on.

  • Enrique (unregistered) in reply to Bob

    That's also what I use, Bob... smppapi.sourceforge.net

    It's a very helpful library, provided you know about SMPP and the SMSC and external entities and all that stuff. Many carriers often provide some other interface for sending SMS, via a web service or a simple authenticated HTTP POST request, although you can't receive messages this way.

    And yes, this is the reason why I also hate java forums. I visit a couple of them for mexican developers but it's basically the same thing; each user has a blog section and 90% or more of the blogs are questions about generic or sometimes very specific stuff (and yes there are also forums where you can actually post questions but people don't seem to care, they keep posting questions on their blogs).

  • Jack (unregistered)

    Can you mail me the code too, please? I need it for a research paper, thank you so much.

    [email protected]

  • (cs) in reply to shadowman
    Heh. I posted an example of this from usenet in the general forums here a few weeks back. What was really interesting about this one is that someone posted a response with ALL WRONG answers and the OP apparently fell for it!

    Comic genius!

  • Danny (unregistered) in reply to Lorenzo
    Lorenzo:
    That's J2ME. Not really what the thread was asking for.

  • (cs) in reply to real_aardvark
    real_aardvark:
    Woot. From the top.

    PS "Analyzing" is spelled with an "s", not a "z." You're welcome.

    I agree with your points completely --- except that "analyzing" is the correct spelling in American English. (If you meant to start an "American English spellings suck" thread, we should move it to the General Discussion area.)

  • Cheong (unregistered) in reply to David C.
    David C.:
    I suppose I should've sent back broken code. These idiots would probably use it without even reading it, let alone testing. Let the failing grade be punishment for cheating.
    I once posted code that is obviously, to someone who really know about it, inefficient in the hard way. That is, normal people won't code like that because you have to think in a difficult way to write that inefficient code.

    I don't know how to code works for that project. But if the teacher really looks into the code, (s)he would not be difficult to spot that.

  • Cheong (unregistered) in reply to Rick
    Rick:
    I have noticed that Perl forum questions are usually answered helpfully and Java forum questions are usually not. I am very curious as to the psychology behind this phenomenon. Any insights?
    People say Java is easy to learn, and things easy to learn are more likely to attract i***ts. (++ points for being a programming language that is commonly taught in schools)

    On the other hand Perl is majorly used by *nix system admins. and is seldom a requirement for school teaching.

    Now you notice the audience quality difference.

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