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Admin
You've got a typo.
dot'n
Admin
Was this software designed by Rube Goldberg?
Admin
One (of many) of the reasons for the ???x open standards (like .docx vs .doc) was that it was illegal to run any of the Office applications on any type of server. This may have changed (have not read the EULA in a few versions), but I doubt it..... So being that all companies are diligent about finding licensing, this means the instance of outlook is on a work station with a user logging in and (presumably) watching).....
Admin
Great, now I have sarcasm stains all over my screen, and the desk underneath it.
Admin
Somehow, I get the feeling that this protocol will never gain the same popularity as REST or GraphQL.
Admin
Illegal I have no idea if true, but I do remember a documentation page explicitly saying it was "unsupported". Because (and I know that from professional experience due to once working on a system that tried to do it anyway) Word couldn't be trusted not to open a dialog box when a program least expects it.
Admin
The most surprising is that it fails ONLY 75% of the time, because it is not just a WTF, it is an EPIC WTF.
The right tool to deal with that functionality is not a keyboard but a flamethrower.
Admin
This is a "nice" bouquet of WTFs: the XML, total ignorance of performance, email data exchange, regex HTML parsing, reliance on Outlook, the lot.
I know how to make it better. The email is read out loud by a text-to-speed system, then the speech is interpreted by speed-to-text system. And the rules on how to interpret this text will be "configurable" - we need a rules engine/inner platform.
Admin
There were always permissions issues. And yes, the docs said "don't do this". So what did our "lead" developer do... write some server apps that used Office components.
Admin
Microsoft provides no way of purchasing a license to be run on a server. If a licensing auditor discovers this process, they have to find all of the people that indirectly provide input, or consume output of the process and validate that they have a license. Of course, in this case, that means that the company would have to have a license assigned to all of the senders of the emails in addition to anyone that may consume the processed data.
Since this is a logistical impossibility, it is essentially a process that cannot ever be licensed accurately. If Microsoft really wanted to be difficult, they could require you to purchase licenses for all the employees of all of your customers as a result of the audit.
The unsupported part of it comes from the fact that invoking Office applications via code actually loads the UI. You can instruct it to be hidden, but it's loaded anyways. Sometimes it will decide to prompt the nonexistent user user for things via the invisible interface.
Admin
Bonus points for thick Southern/Texan/Boston accents (I am not knowledgeable enough to speak of non .us languages & dialects).
Admin
This would have been better if there was a wooden table involved.
Admin
Ah, monsieur, I too am a TDWTF connoisseur.
Admin
"I know how to make it better. The email is read out loud by a text-to-speed system, then the speech is interpreted by speed-to-text system. And the rules on how to interpret this text will be "configurable" - we need a rules engine/inner platform."
Would be a great implementation of an "air gap" security measure! If someone was trying to give illegal instructions everyone would hear it.
Admin
You sure can run Office applications on a server, for example last place I worked had a server that used word to do mail merges, there some licensing that they assume you'll in good faith assign licenses for everyone who uses the server but it's not really any different than having a shared workstation that multiple people use.
Admin
I assume the "business process" in question is basically Chapter 11.
Admin
That might be the best answer I've ever seen on Stack Overflow.
Admin
Ahh, the Stack Overflow page. I thank Coding Horror for introducing me to that one: https://blog.codinghorror.com/parsing-html-the-cthulhu-way/
Admin
I think we should all congratulate Fabian on this one. It's pretty much an all-time classic WTF, and (hopefully) it stands out -- even in January -- as the finest one we will see all year.
Admin
The speaking is in Texan, and the interpreter expects Cockney. For reliability
Admin
"text to speed" .... should we call Heisenberg for advice on this?
Reading it out loud in the server room imposes a single threaded limitation. We can get more scalability by using the cloud. Generate a video with the text-to-speech as the audio track; upload that video to Youtube; wait for Youtube to do its impeccable AI-based closed captioning; use OCR on the frames of the video with CC enabled; finally you have the text.
Admin
In this case, the users of the application include the customers that send emails in. There is no practical way to manage licensing that doesn't cost more than scrapping this contraption and writing proper code.
I've been through license audits. If the auditors notice the application, they'll ask for documentation of the users that use it (directly or indirectly) and ask for either usage logs, or controls that limit the user base. They will be reasonable, but most people that invent these monstrosities are not prepared to answer the questions and either get a major screwing in license fees for the audit, or spend in inordinate amount of time collecting enough documentation to keep the cost down. Either way, it usually turns out to be way more expensive than planned.
Most of us says that it's not practical to run Office applications server-side both because it's unsupported, and because it's incredibly rare to find an organization that can't figure out how to process email without automating the Outlook client but that can figure out how to make licensing controls that satisfy an auditor. Using Exchange EWS, a good old POP or IMAP client library, or creating server-side rules in Outlook are all far better solutions and far easier than what the submitter found.
Admin
This must be close to the worst ever on TDWTF.
Just .... holy crap. The number of terrible decisions here is mind-boggling.
The security holes must number in the hundreds, or thousands. Or hundreds of thousands. What do you want to bet that Outlook is running unpatched since 1995?
Admin
"Microsoft provides no way of purchasing a license to be run on a server." IIRC the TFS licence had something weird about the reports it produced that required a licence if they were manually generated but not if auto generated?
Admin
Mmm, data exchange via email, been there, unfortunately still there :P
Several of our suppliers actively refuse to upload their "stock on hand" report CSV files to our SFTP server, because their company policy dictates that they are not allowed to upload to an SFTP server, as they feel it isn't 'secure'.
I can only surmise that they believe because it has 'FTP' in the name, it's not secure...
However, they are more than happy to email it, something that is even less secure than SFTP.
Now, I would prefer they had an API that I could call up, but alas, in the trade/retail business world, things like that are a dream that may one day get fulfilled.
So I have a Python script set up which every hour logs onto the email server, downloads the attachments, then using the senders domain (not email address, but the domain that sent it, and thankfully each one comes from a unique domain) names the CSV attachment appropriately for my import script to import the necessary information into the database.
Is it kludgy, hell yes, but it works with the import script, so every hour the import script logs onto the SFTP server and downloads the latest CSV files, about 5mins prior to that though, the email script does its thing and uploads the attachments to the SFTP server :P
One day, ONE day, my dream of connecting to an API at each suppliers end will become reality, I fear that day is a century away though :(
Admin
I've seen a process that also used email to transfer the data, but id didn't send them via Outlook.
It received them via Outlook, though, processed them through Access and stuffed the results in some Excel file. The only good thing to say about it: It was a temporary solution that actually got replaced as intended. I can't remember what the problem was that prevented doing it right in the first place, but I think it was something about not getting permissions to connect to another company's systems from the outside but emails could get into their network or something, and they needed a solution quicker than the Overlords of Network Protection could open their holy gates.
Admin
If you want to send data in some textual format, couldn't you just send it as JSON? Maybe as base64-encoded JSON, so it's easy to extract of there is other text?
Admin
Damn, 2 identical typos in one comment, I'm setting personal records here!!
Your idea is actually great. I would only add that to watch said YouTube videos, a series of monitors and cameras should be set up, then the OCR can be done on the feed from these cameras in real time. And real time means is always great.
Admin
A shallow grave in an unmarked stretch of the Mojave Desert would work wonders in this case.
Admin
Hip Hip Huzzah! You made my day! Best WTF in a long time. My memory is awful, but this may be the best ever.
Admin
It's a good idea. You can then parse the JSON file with regular expressions.
Admin
What's most scary about this is it's clearly a finance application. The bbTicker... is clearly a Bloomberg ticker symbol for some financial instrument and it's clearly parsing buy/sell, quantity, etc.
If your broker ever offers you the capability to modify your quotes or orders via email, you know you came to WTFinance.