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!"