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Steve's phone gave its distinctive internal ring.
"Steve! Hey! Happy New Year, man! Jeff here from Corporate AR!" the caller was speaking a mile a minute. "I sent you a critical email. Did you get it yet?"
"One of our desktop applications has a progress bar in it," Bryce N. writes, "and as I was working more and more with the code, I noticed that the progress bar would progress to a seemingly random part in the bar, but never past the halfway mark. This would probably be ignored, if it weren't for the fact that I noticed that my breakpoints would only be hit when the bar reached the 'random' mark."
"While I was trying to discover why, I found this in the code:"
I can see it now. Everybody will say how the following bit of Java code that Shawn C. has sent in isn't actually a WTF and is, in fact, quite brilliant.
To a point, I agree - the code works, and leaves the door open for accomodating changes to the structure of the SQL queries themselves. Especially if, some day, in a far flung future when, from out of space, a runaway planet comes hurtling between the Earth and the Moon, unleashing cosmic destruction casting civilization into ruin, forcing mankind to re-invent the standard keywords used to retrieve information from databases.
During the 1990's, Advanced Technology Solutions (ATS) was one of those companies that dabbled in several different buzzword-worthy markets: dial-up Internet service, custom system configuration, web development, to name a few. None of these were complete disasters, mind you, but none could be considered all that successful either.
While this would ordinarily spell disaster for a business, everything continued to stay afloat and chugging along nicely thanks to ATS's CEO Scott Slokum and his ability to raise capital for future projects. Although the source for Scott's capital was always the same — his wealthy elder brother who funded his ventures to keep him out of the family business — the money always came through when needed. As a result, Scott could move the firm as impulse took him, usually based on something he'd read in that week's issue of InfoWeek without much concern for profitability.
Dec 09