The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

Diary of a Third-Class Programmer

by Alex Papadimoulis in Feature Articles on 2007-09-27

Most first-class (consultants & employees) and second-class (contractors) programmers don’t realize that there’s an entire class of programmers below them. These programmers – the third-class programmers – work in Developer Purgatory with far less responsibilities, no latitude to make any decision at any level, and always get assigned the “dirty work.” In fact, some even consider it an act of charity to call these poor folks “programmers” at all.

Most third-class programmers are third-class for a reason. There is simply no way they could ever get a job anywhere else. Occasionally, recent graduates get sucked in to Developer Purgatory by the allure of a “real programming job,” never realizing the stigma that goes along with it. Andrew is one of these poor souls, desperately trying to get out. And this is his diary.

152 comments - Last comment @ 2024-11-11

Pay the Bills, Bill

by Jake Vinson in Feature Articles on 2007-09-24

Joe A. recently had some troubles at work. Joe works for a company that runs scrolling marquee signs using a markup language similar to HTML. It's a small company, run by two guys we'll call Tom and Bill.

Tom is the technical lead and main owner. The business was his idea to begin with. Bill, on the other hand, came from an accounting background and doesn't have much technical knowledge. Joe, as a technical guy, always reported to Tom.

100 comments - Last comment @ 2023-03-18

Wish-It-Was Two-Factor

by Alex Papadimoulis in Feature Articles on 2007-09-20

Unless you’ve just recently signed on to this whole Internet Thing, you’ve probably noticed an increasing trend in the World of Authentication. These days, when logging on to various websites, users are asked for a name, password, and the answer to one or more “secret questions.” It’s actually a new-fangled type of authentication called Wish-It-Was Two-Factor.

It all started way back in the year 2005, when the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council issued a guideline entitled Authentication in an Internet Banking Environment. It’s a rather exhilarating read if I do say so myself, especially if you’re a fan of government banking regulations. And, really: who isn’t? In a nutshell, the FFIEC mandated that internet banks utilize a Two-Factor approach to authentication by year-end 2006.

198 comments - Last comment @ 2020-02-17

One at a Time, Please

by Jake Vinson in Feature Articles on 2007-09-18

Imagine how much easier your job could be. Imagine no meetings, no signatures on change control paperwork, no code written by people other than you. Imagine being able to just log in to the production server to make a quick fix. Imagine being able to log in to the database server to manually fix some data.

Well, someone at the big bank David works at had the same idea. Checks and balances are for wimps. And out of this idea, Visual Basic for Databases was born. Developed internally (and not to be confused with commercial products with the same name that for all I know are good), VBDBs gave the user total control over the data using a VB-powered Excel spreadsheet.

119 comments - Last comment @ 2007-09-25

CSI: Server Room

by Jake Vinson in Feature Articles on 2007-09-13

Sometimes in IT, we have to be dicks. Like private dicks, I mean. Like Dick Tracy dicks. What did you think I meant?

Well, ~~Dick~~Nick H. found himself wrapped up in an IT investigation that not only had intrigue and mystery, but trickery and knavery! It all started when Nick was working on a web project at his firm in the UK. The setup phase had gone well; they had a dev server, source control, and backup servers. They'd hired contractors to make some modifications to the building, adding network ports, cabling, and installing server cabinets. They received a 1Tb NAS drive, installed it, set it up to receive backups, and all their testing of the backups went well. Nick insisted on a trinagulated backup plan, so all their files would be backed up remotely, as well.

101 comments - Last comment @ 2012-05-02

Slightly Excessive

by Jake Vinson in Feature Articles on 2007-09-11

When Mario W.'s company was approached by a mega not-for-profit organization for a brochure and web site, they were excited. The organization worked for welfare and was all over the place; it owned a nursing home, meeting places, a travel club, meals on wheels... in fact, it might be quicker to list the ventures they don't have: a tattoo parlor, a laser tag arena, and a bee colony. All told, there were about 5,000 members across all the corporation's ventures.

As a tech firm, Mario's company was often asked for advice on technical matters. While Mario was working on the web site, his client asked him about his opinion regarding a new network in their nursing home. It was a small nursing home with half a dozen full-timers that would need computers.

97 comments - Last comment @ 2008-09-01

I Didn’t Know You Could Do That!

by Alex Papadimoulis in Feature Articles on 2007-09-10

Sebastian K.'s first encounter with Megan – a programmer in the company’s data verification department – came in the form of an innocent-sounding question: “how do I get the first value out of a variable?”

Having no idea what she was talking about, Sebastian inquired a bit further. Her code looked something like this:

242 comments - Last comment @ 2009-10-02

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