The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

CodeSlave · 2015-06-01 Reply Admin

dkf:
You've changed the semantics there, because you're now evaluating `this.SendMail(…)` irrespectively of whether the preceding two boolean conditions have been satisfied. Fortunately, compilers don't make this sort of mistake.

True. However:

Contrived example
Not all languages short-circuit when evaluating Boolean operators; some of them you can even configure on the fly.

I'll still contend (in general) if you have an if statement that looks like a George R R Martin description of a banquet scene; it's can be easier to understand at a glance if it looked something like:

if (goodFood & banquetTables & heavilyArmedSoldiers & crossBowMenOnBalcony & BoltonsPresent)
{
    // Red Wedding
}

sloosecannon · 2015-06-01 Reply Admin

CodeSlave:
2) Not all languages short-circuiting when evaluating; some of them you can configure then on the fly.

Hey guys... TRWTF? I think I found it.

flabdablet · 2015-06-01 Reply Admin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuJEeAVWG4o This is the band that should have represented us at Eurovision. Sebastian schmebastian.

anotherusername · 2015-06-01 Reply Admin

Comments are good (and should not be any more likely to be wrong than a descriptive variable name).

And if you happen to need to set a breakpoint on if(... complicated expression ...), you can evaluate ... complicated expression ... easily enough with a simple copy-and-paste.

CodeSlave · 2015-06-01 Reply Admin

sloosecannon:

CodeSlave:
2) Not all languages short-circuit when evaluating Boolean operators; some of them you can even configure on the fly.

Hey guys... TRWTF? I think I found it.

Happier? (please excuse any baby-induced-sleep-deprivation that may have impaired my English this morning; it was a rough night)

sloosecannon · 2015-06-01 Reply Admin

CodeSlave:

sloosecannon:

CodeSlave:
2) Not all languages short-circuit when evaluating Boolean operators; some of them you can even configure on the fly.

Hey guys... TRWTF? I think I found it.

Happier? (please excuse any baby-induced-sleep-deprivation that may have impaired my English this morning; it was a rough night)

For once I actually *wasn't* being a pe[n]dantic spellar/gramming dickweed, but yes, that is better :)

levesque · 2015-06-01 Reply Admin

not unlike is quite common in English

Oh yeah, I know... it's fine as a speech idiom, it was just very evil when slipped into a sentence to demonstrate how bad double negative boolean operations in code are.

NedFodder · 2015-06-01 Reply Admin

RaceProUK:

levesque:
"not unlike"... that's just evil.
`not unlike` is ~~quite~~ not uncommon in English

<blah blah blah iknowitsnotreallyfunny

HardwareGeek · 2015-06-01 Reply Admin

Steve_The_Cynic:
every single one of the checks would be clearer if written as an explicit test directly in the relevant if().

:+1:

Dragnslcr · 2015-06-01 Reply Admin

My hypothesis, which I haven't seen anyone else mention, is that the programmer was told at some point that an if(...) can only contain a boolean, unlike languages like C, where you can use an integer, or PHP, Python, etc., where you can use pretty much any variable type. The programmer, not knowing any better, thought that this meant that it can only have a single boolean variable.

That sounds like a pretty typical :wtf:-generating programmer.

Antarctica · 2015-06-01 Reply Admin

After reading the whole post, there is a big question mark left:

Is "cow-orker" a mistake or an intended typo?

Tsaukpaetra · 2015-06-01 Reply Admin

Great, now that the elephant in the room has been pointed out....

RaceProUK · 2015-06-01 Reply Admin

Intended :wink:

NBeezy · 2015-06-01 Reply Admin

I thought they were gonna use a bitfield in a boolean field. like:

bool count = 0;
if (recipients.Items.Count !=0) count |= 1 << 0;
if (!string.isNullOrEmpty(mailInfo.From)) count |= 1 << 1;
/* ... */
return count == 42; // count == 0b101010

PJH · 2015-06-01 Reply Admin

Antarctica:
cow-orker

http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/C/cow-orker.html

Initech · 2015-06-01 Reply Admin

I didn't make it past the first error message:

throw new ArgumentNullException("
             recepients", 
             "Recipient collection is empty, there is no recipients to send to.");

All your base are belong to us.

kupfernigk · 2015-06-01 Reply Admin

RaceProUK:
It does when it performs optimisations that are impossible in the source language

Such as? (not snark: I'm genuinely curious.)

PleegWat · 2015-06-01 Reply Admin

Bitfields and decimal representation? Naughty programmer spank spank spank.

RaceProUK · 2015-06-01 Reply Admin

kupfernigk:

RaceProUK:
It does when it performs optimisations that are impossible in the source language
Such as? (not snark: I'm genuinely curious.)

I can't think of any off the top of my head. But then I don't write compilers for a living.

Matt_Westwood · 2015-06-01 Reply Admin

Surprised nobody's picked up on this appalling instance of inverse logic:

        count = !this.SendMail(mailMessage, testMode);
        if (!count) {
           sendMailLog.SuccessMessages.Add(current.EmailAddress);
           current.Status = JobWorkStatus.Complete;
           count = current.JobId <= 0;

           if (!count) {
              current.Save();
           }
        }

Er, so count is not having sent the message, and if not count then add address to list of success message. And then it gets worse.

EvanED · 2015-06-01 Reply Admin

gnasher729:
So for example, if you set and use the boolean, then call a function, the compiler needs to find out that the variable is set again before any future use, so it can avoid saving the variable from a register to the stack and restore it. With six variables, each one is not even used after the first use, which makes that analysis a lot easier.

I don't buy this. The compiler still needs to figure out the "each one is not even used after the first use" fact, and the step from there to finding live ranges for the same variable is small. And compilers *have* live range analysis, so you don't need to much worry about how difficult it is to do, because at this point "easier than easy" isn't much different from "easy."

sirhegel · 2015-06-01 Reply Admin

According to British naming conventions the variable should have be named earl.

kupfernigk · 2015-06-01 Reply Admin

sirhegel:
According to British naming conventions the variable should have be named earl

No, "Earl" is a US first name. Earl ("Eorl") is actually Anglo-Saxon and predates the Norman aristocracy that set up our present system. But in any case British people aren't given names like Earl, Prince and so on because these are titles, i.e. reserved words. It would be like naming someone "Mister" or "Sir". In the US they are not titles and so can be used as personal names (i.e. variable names.)

tenshino · 2015-06-01 Reply Admin

You deserve the pedantic badge for that. Great explanation, though :)

tenshino · 2015-06-01 Reply Admin

I'm really surprised that on one commented on the author's, apparent, complete lack of understanding of how to properly use a "while" statement:

while(true) {
    if(true)
        break;
}

Really? There are potential reasons why you would want to manually loop though an enumeration, but I can't think of a single reason why you would intentionally setup this potential infinite loop (not in this context). Just wait for the day that something goes wrong, and that condition never lets the "break" happen. That'll be a not fun day for somebody.

gnasher729 · 2015-06-01 Reply Admin

obeselymorbid:
Depends on your version of C.I guess you haven't worked with typedef unsigned char bool.

I have. But we are in the second decade now, and anything before C11 is not C anymore. Oh wait, <stdbool.h> was part of C99 already. Are you using compilers that live more than 16 years in the past?

Choonster · 2015-06-01 Reply Admin

MSVC versions before 2013 didn't support C99 at all. MSVC 2013 only has partial support, but that does include _Bool and bool (which expands to _Bool).

coyo · 2015-06-01 Reply Admin

Just having the tests inline makes it a hell of a lot more readable anyway. If I'm around that point in the code, I want to know what is happening and I don't want it hidden behind layers (and sometimes layers) of other files.

another_sam · 2015-06-02 Reply Admin

RaceProUK:
The biggest : a Boolean called count

Maybe. If this were Java I'd say the biggest :wtf: is the lack of the final keyword in the declaration of the mis-named count variable, which would have stopped this code from compiling at all. But I don't know enough about .Net to know if readonly can be used the same way as final for local variables.

RaceProUK · 2015-06-02 Reply Admin

I think it does; never tried it though

another_sam · 2015-06-02 Reply Admin

Severity_One:
boolean count1, count2, count3, count4, count5, count12;
You see? It still could have been worse.

boolean count1, count2, count3, count4, count5, ah_ah_ah;

Filed under: Stealing the joke in the article

another_sam · 2015-06-02 Reply Admin

RaceProUK:
I think it does

Good to know but I'll have forgotten by the next time it will be useful to me. :smile:

RaceProUK:
never tried it though

You're bad people. Immutability is awesome and eliminates or reduces entire classes of bugs. I have Eclipse set to add the final keyword when I save to all variables that aren't written again, which makes the variables written multiple times stand out for me to fix.

RaceProUK · 2015-06-02 Reply Admin

To be fair, it's very rare I have a variable I could make readonly

another_sam · 2015-06-02 Reply Admin

RaceProUK:
To be fair, it's very rare I have a variable I could make readonly

How does that happen? In my experience the vast majority of variables are written only once. Does your code need more decomposition or something maybe?

RaceProUK · 2015-06-02 Reply Admin

The stuff I work on often requires a fair amount of calculation. And I do tend to inline a fair amount too. Nothing too silly, otherwise it'd be an unmaintainable mess :smile:

another_sam · 2015-06-02 Reply Admin

RaceProUK:
The stuff I work on often requires a fair amount of calculation.


final int partOneCalculation = calculatePartOne();
final int partTwoCalculation = calculatePartTwo();
fina int finalCalculation = calculateFinal(partOneCalculation, partTwoCalculation);

RaceProUK · 2015-06-02 Reply Admin

I see the merit in the approach; whether I use it or not though… no idea. I'll keep it in mind though.

Masaaki_Hosoi · 2015-06-02 Reply Admin

To bastardize a quote for my own purposes: "I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such code."

another_sam:
boolean count1, count2, count3, count4, count5, ah_ah_ah;
Filed under: Stealing the joke in the article

boolean count1, count2, count3, count4, count5, ah_ah_ah, FILE_NOT_FOUND; Am I doing it right?

herby · 2015-06-02 Reply Admin

I was waiting for this. First reference to 'filenotfound'!!

Buddy · 2015-06-02 Reply Admin

How would the lack of final stop that code from compiling?

another_sam · 2015-06-02 Reply Admin

Buddy:
How would the lack of final stop that code from compiling?

Lack of final doesn't stop it compiling, liberal use of final stops it compiling. Liberal use of final makes count without final obvious, drawing attention, hopefully the right kind, and an opportunity for improvement.

Buddy · 2015-06-02 Reply Admin

Pah. Tricked me with your upside-down Aussie logic. Do your for loops go around the other way too?

kupfernigk · 2015-06-02 Reply Admin

tenshino:
You deserve the pedantic badge for that. Great explanation, though

I rejoice in my pendantry. When you get to my age, that and telling people to remove themselves from my lawn is about all you have left.

kupfernigk · 2015-06-02 Reply Admin

RaceProUK:
I see the merit in the approach; whether I use it or not though… no idea. I'll keep it in mind though.

Basically what Erlang does - immutables.

obeselymorbid · 2015-06-02 Reply Admin

gnasher729:
But we are in the second decade now, and anything before C11 is not C anymore.

:wtf:

gnasher729:
Oh wait, was part of C99 already. Are you using compilers that live more than 16 years in the past?

Yes, I'm using C compilers with partial C99 implementation without bool which are not likely to change even in the next 16 years.

urkerab · 2015-06-02 Reply Admin

RaceProUK:
To be fair, it's very rare I have a variable I could make readonly

I'm constantly making variables readonly.

aliceif · 2015-06-02 Reply Admin

urkerab:
I'm ```const```antly making variables ```readonly```.

I see that.

Dlareg · 2015-06-03 Reply Admin

For a true bool type b=1000 should give an error and not revert to one.

And in python: True + 5 => 6

antiquarian · 2015-06-03 Reply Admin

Dlareg:
And in python:True + 5 => 6

[image]

Dlareg · 2015-06-03 Reply Admin

I totally agree... they should have fixed that in python 3000. It is really terrible.

The Busy Little Boolean

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