The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

Directive 595

by Alex Papadimoulis in Feature Articles on 2011-11-29

As the Database Architect, Daniel always had a pretty good relationship with Gerald, the Application Architect. At least, as good of a relationship as two natural rivals might have. Their backgrounds were very similar – both worked in Oracle and both started programming in C – and they actually saw eye-to-eye on more things than not. Both architects knew which realms they owned – the Application Architect’s was clearly Java and the Database Architect’s was Oracle – but there was plenty of middle ground to dispute.

However, when the inevitable disagreement would occur, they’d resolve their differences as diplomatically as possible and rarely would need to involve the Chief Architect. It was exactly how the Chief Architect preferred it to be: calm, peaceful, and agreeable. And besides, the Chief Architect had plenty of more important matters to attend to, such as board meetings and other executive-y things.

213 comments - Last comment @ 2017-07-16

Enterprise Dependency: The Next Generation

by Alex Papadimoulis in Feature Articles on 2011-11-17

A while back, I posted The Enterprise Dependency and then Big Ball of Yarn. They were both visual depictions of a good ole' enterprise framework that was "several dozen megabytes chock full of helper classes like IEnterpriseAuthenticationProviderFactoryManagementFactory. So, continuing in the tradition of the Representative Line, here's another representative dependency diagrams offers some insight into the pain that large applications' maintainers face each day.

"Someone was able to convince management that our software system needed a massive rewrite," notes Bob, "so, management commissioned the Next Generation project. After two years, it's turned into an over-architected abomination with over 1700 classes, and still growing. It is only half-functional so far, but it's in production and is replacing an easy-to-support legacy system which had around 100 classes."

138 comments - Last comment @ 2011-11-29

Secure';

by Remy Porter in Feature Articles on 2011-11-15

"Take a look at this bug," said Victor's boss. "It'll be a good way for you to learn our code base."

Always a fan of the hands-on approach, Victor agreed. He pulled up the code and took a look, expecting to see a nicely bulletproof application. The system was a hosted service that allowed customers to store very sensitive technical data. The interview process had stressed exactly how sensitive the data was. "Security is job one," the boss said. "We spent a great deal of time and effort to make sure this was as secure as we could make it, and I need to make sure that you'll comply with secure coding practices."

191 comments - Last comment @ 2011-12-27

The Showstopping Fax Error

by Alex Papadimoulis in Feature Articles on 2011-11-10

The year was 1999, and it was an exciting time to be alive. Although Shea wasn’t working at one of the burgeoning dot-coms, he was the head honcho of technology at a decent-sized law firm. And that actually meant something, since the lawyers-that-be were committed to gearing up to race down the information superhighway.

Law was – and largely still is – a largely paper-based industry. Motions, subpoenas, interrogatories, praecipes, and a myriad other documents need to be written, received, typed, faxed, mailed, and filed each day. Though an army of paralegals can go a long way in battling paperwork, an electronic document management system is a juggernaut that could handle any dead-tree onslaught. And it was Shea’s job to construct one.

161 comments - Last comment @ 2011-11-27

Remotely Incompetent

by Scott Selikoff in Feature Articles on 2011-11-08

"Welcome back, Susan!" one of Susan’s co-workers said as she walked in the door. As she strolled to her desk, the co-worker continued, "Hope you enjoyed your vacation. You missed quite a fireworks show while you were away. We lost an entire day’s worth of orders, bit of a nightmare."

Susan had spent last week at sunny resort with her family, and was trying to adjust back to the cold January mornings in Massachusetts. Being greeted with the news that their ordering system had been offline for almost a day was not something she wanted to hear.

219 comments - Last comment @ 2011-12-27

Aggressive Management

by Remy Porter in Feature Articles on 2011-11-01

Not for the first time, Chuck was happy he didn't have any lawn ornaments. First, they were just plain tacky. But more important, is that the screaming lunatic with foam flying from his lips while beating on your door and screaming like his face was on fire might throw them through a window. In a way, the screaming lunatic was all the lawn ornamentation Chuck needed.

"After all I've done for you, you treat me this way?" the maniac schreeched while kicking at Chuck's front door. "Nobody does this to me! You'll pay you ugrateful little turd! You'll pay!"

233 comments - Last comment @ 2012-01-23

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