Alex Papadimoulis

Founder, The Daily WTF

May 2007

Classic WTF: Integration Nation

by in Feature Articles on

Integration Nation was originally published on August 24, 2005.

Dylan Tusler's official job title is Integration Analyst, so he was not surprised to be called in to look at the setup for one of their major new corporate applications. He had held hopes that this new application would herald a new age in integration at their organization. The vendors (Intertrode and Initech) promised that they would be implementing a fabulous new Enterprise Nervous System in order to support their new Service Oriented Architecture (and I'm sure what ever else is "in" these days).

75 comments - Last comment @ 2007-06-04

Announcement: The Finalists Have Been Selected

by in Feature Articles on

Last month, I announced The Olympiad of Misguided Geeks at Worse Than Failure Programming Contest and challenged you to solve a simple problem (build a four-function calculator) using the most obscenely convoluted way imaginable.

In the three weeks that followed, readers submitted all sorts of incredibly creative calculators. In the three weeks that followed that, we went through all 350+ entries. Each entry was individually configured, compiled, and tested (thanks Intern Boyd!). Afterwards, Jake, Intern Boyd, and I sat around the conference table for nearly three full days while we ran each valid calculator on the projector, reviewed the code, and tried to narrow down the entries to five finalists. We did not succeed: there was simply no way to narrow it down to five finalists.

35 comments - Last comment @ 2007-06-03

Playground Fun

by in Feature Articles on

Although today was technically supposed to be only Classics, I couldn't resist not sharing this fun submission from Kevin Cazabon

"Having moved overseas to Belgium a few years ago, from time to time I'm reminded that good, effective icon design is an artform best left to the true professionals. This is especially true when you consider that your software may be used across the world, and what may seem like common sense to you may befuddle a Belgian... or the other way around.

108 comments - Last comment @ 2009-03-19

Classic WTF: 5 years C-pound experience

by in Tales from the Interview on

5 years C-pound experience was originally published on November 01, 2004.

Scott C. Reynolds was looking for a strong C# developer a while back. He was kind enough to share the tale of one of the many, many unqualified recruits (who we'll call “J“) with us.

86 comments - Last comment @ 2024-06-13

Classic WTF: calculatethenumbers(v,w,x,y,z)

by in CodeSOD on

Happy Memorial Day, U.S. readers! And for you non-U.S. readers, Happy .. errr ... Regular Day of the Week! calculatethenumbers(v,w,x,y,z) was originally published way back on July 21 in 2004 ...

Ray Suker sends in a function from a system he inherited from the Guru who designed it before him:

56 comments - Last comment @ 2008-01-26

Unconfigurables Configurables

by in Feature Articles on

Bill S wrote in to share some code from an ancient billing system still in use to this very day...

My first assignment was to make the billing system’s code Y2K compliant. Fortunately, management had given us ample time to prepare: two full months.

63 comments - Last comment @ 2007-06-05

The Great Pyramid of Agile

by in Alex's Soapbox on

UPDATE from Alex of 2012: Ouch. In retrospect, this article is pretty awful. The author (the Alex of 2007) had been largely mis-informed by charlatans: those Agilistas who claim "agile" was a goal of the development organization that was achieved by consuming only small amounts of the business domain at a time (hence the flawed pyramid analogy).

Five years later, it turns out Agile is not that at all. It is a business mindset that requires the business to think smaller and sooner; only after that can the development organizaiton adopt smaller, sooner changes. Hopefully, five years from now, this will just be the way that all software is developed.

236 comments - Last comment @ 2013-11-20

Accessibility

by in Representative Line on

These days, Accessibility is all the rage. I wish I could say it was actually driven by §508 Requirements, W3C Standards, and an all-in-all good faith effort to allow “differently abled” people to access content. But it hasn’t. As long as we, the majority, can access content, that’s all that really matters.

Fortunately, the mobile revolution has forced us to go Accessible. Now that we need to access content with our “differently abled” smartphone gadgets, we need that content to be Accessible. Bonus for the “differently able” people, I suppose.

130 comments - Last comment @ 2024-07-24

The Indexer

by in Feature Articles on

A few kilometers left on Ruta Nacional 128, a brief stop at a control policial, a short trip down the unpaved Calle 33, and just like that, Sergio was at his destination. It was a top-secret Argentinean Government Facility.

Now, before you get all excited, let me say that this was not the fun type of Top Secret. There were no alien spaceships, super weapons, or mind control devices. No, there were just maps. Lots and lots and lots of maps. Sergio’s job was to help digitize them.

110 comments - Last comment @ 2017-06-24

An Amusing Way of Saying UPDATE

by in CodeSOD on

Four months ago, Kevin P. joined a well-known health care provider as a project lead. Little did he know what he would find himself leading.

After a complete overhaul of the architecture (or what passed for an architecture), K.P. still deals with little nuggets of joy like this every day...

78 comments - Last comment @ 2008-03-26

L.T.'s Bonus

by in Feature Articles on

Being that Worse Than Failure is a web site, just about every story submission we receive comes in through the vast series of tubes known as the “Internet.” Sure, every once in a while the tubes get clogged up with material and cause all sorts of delays, but for the most part the “Internet” is more reliable, much faster, and a lot cheaper than the alternative: the postal system. But I will say that it’s certainly not as fun, as this very first Snail Mail submission from L.T. shows…

100 comments - Last comment @ 2007-05-23

The Dimmer

by in CodeSOD on

When Ben started working at a small ASP-based dotcom, there was an intern who was working on a major feature of their application. Her code confusingly cute. Quick example: instead of calling a database table for checklist templates "CLTemplate" and having one row per checklist, she called it "CLManager" and had columns CLItem01 through CLItem100.

Okay, maybe that's a bit obnoxious. But consider her sub for "dimming" (i.e. declaring variables in VBScript) ...

69 comments - Last comment @ 2007-06-29

Job Interview 2.0: Now With Riddles!

by in Feature Articles on

Some years ago, someone at Microsoft noticed that they were having a bit of a Resources problem. A Human Resources problem to be specific. There were a whole lot of job openings (thousands, in fact) and a whole lot of applications (hundreds of thousands, in fact), and no easy way to match the right applicants with the right jobs. So they decided to reinvent the Job Interview.

Traditionally, job interviews are used to ascertain two things: how competent the candidate is and how well his personality (or lack thereof) will fit in with the organization. With their introduction of Job Interview 2.0, Microsoft included both of those features and added one additional: how the candidate responds when presented with asinine, utterly pointless, and completely ridiculous brainteaser questions.

932 comments - Last comment @ 2024-10-17

Reggie X. Preston

by in Feature Articles on

At the time, it seemed like a good idea. When a fatal error would occur in a batch program, a message would be sent to the operator’s console that notified him of the error and prompted him to terminate the program. From there, the operator would call the program’s support contact (generally a programmer) and ask him what to do. Management figured that someone with some knowledge of the program should be the one that decides, not just some operator.

Of course, as the years passed by, management learned three things about this policy. First, the support contact’s answer was always “it’s a fatal error! What can I possibly do from home at 2:00 AM? Just terminate it!” Second, after years and years of developing batch programs for internal clients, there were a whole lot of batch programs (about 20,000 in all) and a whole lot of programmers that were called in the middle of the night. And third, because the operator notification would block until an answer was received, subsequent programs would be delayed while the operator tried to get a hold of the responsible programmer, who would occasionally disconnect his phone at night to avoid the inevitable call. Obviously, something had to be done.

49 comments - Last comment @ 2016-12-15

Classics Week: Most Helpful FAQ Ever

by in Error'd on

Originally published in Pop-up Potpourri: Chocolate Covered SQL on January 18, 2007. 

Sean K. Moran shares this tip from the Most Helpful FAQ Ever ...

25 comments - Last comment @ 2007-05-14

Classics Week: A Case of the MUMPS

by in Feature Articles on

A Case of the MUMPS was originally published February 13, 2007. And yes, MUMPS (or M (or Cache)) is still alive and kicking... and just might be lurking as the "database" at your next job in the healthcare industry...

You may not realize it, but the majority of us developers have been living a sheltered professional life. Sure, we’ve got that living disaster of a C++ application and that ridiculous interface between PHP and COBOL written by the boss, but I can assure you, that all pales in comparison to what many, less fortunate programmers have to work with each day. These programmers remain mostly forgotten, toiling away at a dead-end career maintaining ancient information systems whose ridiculously shoddy architecture is surpassed only by the tools used to create it. Bryan H lived in such a world for over two years. Specifically, he worked at a “MUMPS shop.”

57 comments - Last comment @ 2009-08-17

Classics Week: Removing Spaces, the Easy Way

by in CodeSOD on

Removing Spaces, the Easy Way was originally published on February 22, 2007.

There are tons of functions in so-called "standard" libraries, but sometimes the function you want just isn't there. Luckily, string functions are so simple to write that anyone can do it!

65 comments - Last comment @ 2007-11-13

Classics Week: The Really Windy City

by in Error'd on

Originally published in Pop-up Potpourri: The Really Windy City on January 02, 2007.

And I thought Chicago was the Windy City. At least Adrian Ritchie and all the other folks from Guernsey shouldn't have any trouble flying a kite ... with an 80,000 ton weight attached to it ...

76 comments - Last comment @ 2010-03-26

Classics Week: Hacking Made Easy

by in Feature Articles on

Hacking Made Easy was originally published on March 01, 2007.

Hopefully after getting out of college, most of us have matured past drawing dude parts on passed-out roommates. Now, I don't mean to imply that I've matured beyond that point, just that I hope you have.

106 comments - Last comment @ 2017-02-15

Classics Week: Laying the Foundation for i18n, Brick by Brick

by in CodeSOD on

Laying the Foundation for i18n, Brick by Brick was originally published on February 07, 2007.

In Europe, they do things a little bit differently. From what I understand, it boils down to this: they work less and play more; when not working or playing, they drive tiny little cars. Apparently, they all speak different languages too.

63 comments - Last comment @ 2012-03-19

Classics Week: Chocolate Covered SQL

by in Error'd on

Originally published in Pop-up Potpourri: Chocolate Covered SQL on January 18, 2007.

Toby Gray, that's just not fair! How come my chocolate covered raisins never come with any SQL?

82 comments - Last comment @ 2010-04-13

Classics Week: The Contractor's Note

by in Feature Articles on

The Contractor's Note was originally published on January 29, 2007.

The easiest and most popular place for Incompetents to hide is within the ranks of professional contractors. It's an easy job. Generally, the first few weeks are slow; everyone is so busy (hence the need for a contractor in the first place) that they have no time to train someone new. The next few weeks are equally slow, as only small and easy-to-understand tasks are dolled out. By the time anyone discovers the gross incompetence (if it's discovered at all), there's only a week or two left in the contract and they just let slide. And then The Incompetent moves on to his next contact.

49 comments - Last comment @ 2007-05-14

Classics Week: But It Worked in the Demo

by in CodeSOD on

But It Worked in the Demo was originally published on January 26, 2007.

We've all been there: all of your test cases worked the night before but when it comes time to run the demo you realize you missed something. In college, I had to write Sub Hunter in assembly and those pesky submarines kept launching missiles after I depth charged them back to hell. The TA didn't notice either. It wasn't until later that I learned about the magic of peer review. Not that fewer bugs sneak across the unit test border, you just feel better because someone else missed the problem too.

19 comments - Last comment @ 2008-06-10

Announcement: WTF in Russian!

by in Feature Articles on

I am very excited to announce the launch of Worse Than Failure: Russian Edition at ru.WorseThanFailure.com.

The Russian Edition is headed up by Evgeniy Vigovskiy, a systems administrator over at the Russian Federal Tax Service in Moscow. Evgeniy will periodically publish translated articles and original content on the site. The RSS feed is located here: http://syndication.thedailywtf.com/WTF/RU.

63 comments - Last comment @ 2014-04-02

Classics Week: Lost in Translation

by in Error'd on

Lost in Translation was published in an original manner February in 14, 2007.

Peter T. had, a fantastic time of the entertainment which tried to decipher what required this vigilant case of him. He could calculate towards outside, although, which it checkbox would prevent that different alarm time appears.

38 comments - Last comment @ 2007-05-10

Classics Week: Immaculate Backup

by in Feature Articles on

Immaculate Backup was originally published on February 21, 2007.

Murphy's Law 198§44: the more complete a backup/recovery solution becomes, the less likely it is to ever be used.

27 comments - Last comment @ 2008-08-18

Classics Week: How Not to Parse Command Line Arguments

by in CodeSOD on

How Not to Parse Command Line Arguments was originally published on December 15, 2006.

Today's Code Snippet is from S.C., who shared this in the Side Bar a littler earlier this week ...

107 comments - Last comment @ 2024-02-28

Classics Week: The Call of Codethulhu

by in Feature Articles on

What better way to start Classic Week then how we ended 2006? Originally published on Wednesday, December 20, 2006, The Call of Codethulhu is a personal favorite of mine, especially with the illustration from George E. McDougall. And speaking of that, expect to see more of George's work here soon ...

It seemed like any other job: "Java/J2EE contractors needed for a one-to-three month contract to maintain proprietary supply-chain management software." Sure, James C could have waited around to find something more interesting, but the pay was fantastic and, being such a short term contract, he figured he had little to lose. That is, until he came face to face with Codethulhu.

31 comments - Last comment @ 2024-03-01

Classics Week: The Mentor

by in CodeSOD on

Today's Classic WTF was originally published on Wednesday, November 08, 2006. An interesting fact: this is actually the same Chris and the same Mentor from an earlier article, Mentors, the Freshmaker.  

Today's Code Snippet comes from Chris. Chris has had the distinct pleasure of being "mentored" by an amazing individual. Some time passed, then Chris bumped into The Mentor again. This time Chris had to rework a web site The Mentor had, dare I say, created? As Chris was going through the code for the page design, he noticed something curious about the footer. No matter where the page was scrolled to, the footer always showed up. "Very nice", he thought to himself, "I wonder where he got the script?" Turns out The Mentor had written it himself.

26 comments - Last comment @ 2007-05-09

Corporate E-mail on the Road, 1990's Style

by in Feature Articles on

First and foremost, I wanted to remind everyone about the first-ever Olympiad of Misguided Geeks at Worse Than Failure (or OMGWTF for short) Programming Contest. The entries have been streaming in and are looking really fun and interesting. There’s plenty of time left to get started, so go hack up something and submit your own entry! Who knows, you might very well win the Grand Prize of a High-Resolution JPEG of an OMGWTF First Prize Trophy and a brand-new laptop to view your highly-valuable JPEG.

So, without any further ado, here is Corporate E-mail on the Road, 1990's Style, the story of Owen Morgan’s very first professional programming experience...

36 comments - Last comment @ 2007-05-18

Poor Mr. Gookin

by in Error'd on

Chad Ross works at a Certain State Agency and is unable to send any emails to his client, Mr. Gookin. The CSA's content filter just keeps blocking Chad's outgoing emails, complaining that they contain racist content. More specifically, the filter finds Mr. Gookin's last name to be particularly offensive. Because the CSA's IT administrator refuses to add “Gookin” to the filter's safe word list, Chad is left with the daunting task of asking Mr. Gookin to change his last name to something a little less racist. Now if only he could send out that email request to do so ...


            

        

   
    


    

        

            148 comments - Last comment @ 2013-11-23
        

    




    




        


        

            

                

                    Contact
                    Privacy Policy
                    RSS
                

                


                
Copyright © 2025 Inedo Publishing - v2024.9

                
Monitored by Panopta
                    • Deployed with BuildMaster