The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

Investigation of Satisfaction

by Mark Bowytz in Error'd on 2018-11-02

"There are premium translation services, and then, well, there are the rest," Dave P. writes.

17 comments - Last comment @ 16:37

For a Long While

by Remy Porter in CodeSOD on 2018-11-01

Here’s a philosophical question. Let’s say you’re searching an array. Is it clearer to use a for loop and break when you find the element, or is it better to use a while loop and break if you hit the end of the array?

Most of us would likely use the for loop, but it wouldn’t be wrong to use the while- maybe just unexpected.

34 comments - Last comment @ 07:39

Paper (Size), Please

by Ellis Morning in Feature Articles on 2018-10-31

Terje worked for an IT firm that serviced the purchasing department of a global corporation. To manage purchases, the department used an enterprise shipping and warehousing system that shall be called BLA to protect the guilty. The system ran on a Citrix farm in Norway with all the most impressive resources at its command.

39 comments - Last comment @ 2018-11-03

A Tern at the Build Process

by Remy Porter in CodeSOD on 2018-10-29

Justin Self inherited an internal build tool. Rome may not have been built in a day, but this tool was. It “simplifies” provisioning development environments, claiming machines in the environment for certain tasks, and so on.

(e.BuildStatus == null ? 
    (e.Branch == null ? "" : ($"\nBranch: <{e.BranchUrl}|{e.Branch}>")) :
    ($"\n{(e.BuildStatus == "Building" ? "Building" : e.BuildStatus == "Success" ?
    $"Built" : "Build failed")}: <{(e.BuildStatus == "Success" ? 
    e.BuildReleaseUrl : e.BuildUrl)}|{e.BuildRelease}>") + 
    $"{GetCardUrl(e.Branch)}") +
    $"\n{(e.DeployStatus == "Deploying" ? 
    "Deploying" : e.DeployStatus == "Success" ? 
    "Deployed" : "Deploy failed")}: 
    <{e.DeployUrl}|{e.DeployRelease}>{GetCardUrl(e.DeployRelease)}"

26 comments - Last comment @ 2018-11-02

We Need a Windows Install CD in Aisle 7

by Mark Bowytz in Error'd on 2018-10-26

"Encountered this one while attempting to weigh some vegetables and well...the scale crashed?" writes Sam.

27 comments - Last comment @ 2018-10-29

Created Equal

by Remy Porter in Representative Line on 2018-10-25

Let's say you have an enum. You have an array of objects, where one of the fields is of that enum type. You want to filter the array of objects where the value of the enum is PAYMENTMETHOD.

You also hate equals signs.

16 comments - Last comment @ 2018-10-30

The Hardcode to Success

by Charles Robinson in Feature Articles on 2018-10-24

Rodrigo was but a simple software development intern eager to prove himself. He would always volunteer for the menial tasks that nobody else wanted to do. "Nobody else" mainly consisted of Justin, Rodrigo's supervisor. Justin wasn't a big fan of doing stuff so he was glad to have an intern that was ready and willing.

Justin got a request from the network administrators to create a system status application to interface with their servers. They wanted to receive alert emails every hour on the hour if anything on the servers had a conniption. If everything was ok, maintain radio silence. To do this, a simple app would need to be created to pass system health check results to Pushbullet, which would take care of sending the alerts. Rodrigo didn't even wait for Justin to finish. "I'll do it!"

31 comments - Last comment @ 2018-11-01

We Tried Nothing

by Remy Porter in CodeSOD on 2018-10-23

Initrode bought a UI widget library from Initech. Years passed, and eventually Initech went under. Initrode kept on keeping on, and kept using the library. Management shuffles happened, IT got downsized, and new development got outsourced.

Merlin B worked for the company that got the contract. Somehow, someone got the source code from Initech's GUI library.

23 comments - Last comment @ 2018-10-30