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If you write a lot of Java, you're going to end up writing a lot of getters and setters. Without debating the merits of loads of getters and setters versus bare properties, ideally, getters and setters are the easiest code to write. Many IDEs will just generate them for you! How can you screw up getters and setters?
Well, Dave found someone who could.
Many a network admin has turned to the siren song of Perl to help them automate managing their networks. Frank's predecessor is no exception.
They also got a bit combative about people critiquing their Perl code:
Ah, bad date handling. We've all seen it. We all know it. So when Lorenzo sent us this C# function, we almost ignored it:
private string GetTimeStamp(DateTime param)
{
string retDate = param.Year.ToString() + "-";
if (param.Month < 10)
retDate = retDate + "0" + param.Month.ToString() + "-";
else
retDate = retDate + param.Month.ToString() + "-";
if (param.Day < 10)
retDate = retDate + "0" + param.Day.ToString() + " ";
else
retDate = retDate + param.Day.ToString() + " ";
if (param.Hour < 10)
retDate = retDate + "0" + param.Hour.ToString() + ":";
else
retDate = retDate + param.Hour.ToString() + ":";
if (param.Minute < 10)
retDate = retDate + "0" + param.Minute.ToString() + ":";
else
retDate = retDate + param.Minute.ToString() + ":";
if (param.Second < 10)
retDate = retDate + "0" + param.Second.ToString() + ".";
else
retDate = retDate + param.Second.ToString() + ".";
if (param.Millisecond < 10)
retDate = retDate + "0" + param.Millisecond.ToString();
else
retDate = retDate + param.Millisecond.ToString();
return retDate;
}
Yitzchak was going through some old web code, and found some still in-use JavaScript to handle compatibility issues with older Firefox versions.
if ($.browser.mozilla &&
$.browser.version.slice(0, 1) == '1')
{
…
}
Dan's co-workers like passing around TDWTF stories, mostly because seeing code worse than what they're writing makes them feel less bad about how often they end up hacking things together.
One day, a co-worker told Dan: "Hey, I think I found something for that website with the bad code stories!"
We've talked about ASP .Net WebForms in the past. In this style of development, everything was event driven: click a button, and the browser sends an HTTP request to the server which triggers a series of events, including a "Button Click" event, and renders a new page.
When ASP .Net launched, one of the "features" was a lazy repaint in browsers which supported it (aka, Internet Explorer), where you'd click the button, the page would render on the server, download, and then the browser would repaint only the changed areas, making it feel more like a desktop application, albeit a laggy one.
Eddie's company hired a Highly Paid Consultant to help them retool their systems for a major upgrade. Of course, the HPC needed more and more time, and the project ran later and later and ended up wildly over budget, so the HPC had to be released, and Eddie inherited the code.
What followed was a massive crunch to try and hit absolutely hard delivery dates. Management didn't want their team "rewriting" the expensive code they'd already paid for, they just wanted "quick fixes" to get it live. Obviously, the HPC's code must be better than theirs, right?
One of the key points of confusion for people unfamiliar with Java is the distinction between true object types, like Integer, and "primitive" types, like int. This is made worse by the collection types, like ArrayList, which needs to hold a true object type, but can't hold a primitive. A generic ArrayList<Integer> is valid, but ArrayList<int> won't compile. Fortunately for everyone, Java automatically "boxes" types- at least since Java 5, way back in 2004- so integerList.add(5) and int n = integerList.get(0) will both work just fine.
Somebody should have told that to Alice's co-worker, who spends a lot of code to do some type gymnastics that they shouldn't have: