by Mark Bowytz on (#3QZQN)
"Well, it looks like Google News was inebriated as well!" Daniel wrote.
Link | http://thedailywtf.com/ |
Feed | http://syndication.thedailywtf.com/TheDailyWtf |
Updated | 2024-07-03 12:02 |
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by Scot Devera on (#3QX9D)
We're back again with a little something different, brought to you by Raygun. Once again, the cast of "Improv for Programmers" is going to create some comedy on the fly for you, and this time… you could say it's… transformative. Today's episode contains small quantities of profanity.Raygun provides a window into how users are really experiencing your software applications.Unlike traditional logging, Raygun silently monitors applications for issues affecting end users in production, then allows teams to pinpoint the root cause behind a problem with greater speed and accuracy by providing detailed diagnostic information for developers. Raygun makes fixing issues 1000x faster than traditional debugging methods using logs and incomplete information.Now’s the time to sign up. In a few minutes, you can have a build of your app with Raygun integrated, and you’ll be surprised at how many issues it can identify. There’s nothing to lose with a 14-day free trial, and there are pricing options available that fit any team size. [Advertisement] ProGet can centralize your organization's software applications and components to provide uniform access to developers and servers. Check it out!
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by Charles Robinson on (#3QNYG)
After working mind-numbing warehouse jobs for several years, Jesse was ready for a fresh start in Information Technology. The year 2015 brought him a newly-minted Computer and Networking Systems degree from Totally Legit Technical Institute. It would surely help him find gainful employment, all he had to do was find the right opportunity.Seeking the right opportunity soon turned in to any opportunity. Jesse came across a posting for an IT Systems Administrator that piqued his interest but the requirements and responsibilities left a lot to be desired. They sought someone with C++ and Microsoft Office experience who would perform "General IT Admin Work" and "Other Duties as assigned". None of those things seemed to fit together, but he applied anyway.During the interview, it became clear that Jesse and this small company were essentially in the same boat. While he was seeking any IT employment, they were seeking any IT Systems admin. Their lone admin recently departed unexpectedly and barely left any documentation of what he actually did. Despite several red flags about the position, he decided to accept anyway. Jesse was assured of little oversight and freedom to do things his way - an extreme rarity for a young IT professional.Jesse got to work on his first day determined to map out the minefield he was walking in to. The notepad with all the admin passwords his predecessor left behind was useful for logging in to things. Over the next few days, he prodded through the network topology to uncover all the horrors that lie within. Among them:
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by Scot Devera on (#3QE86)
We always like to change things up a little bit here at TDWTF, and thanks to our sponsor Raygun, we've got a chance to bring you a little treat, or at least something a little different.We're back with a new podcast, but this one isn't a talk show or storytelling format, or even a radio play. Remy rounded up some of the best comedians in Pittsburgh who were also in IT, and bundled them up to do some improv, using articles from our site and real-world IT news as inspiration. It's… it's gonna get weird.Thanks to Erin Ross, Ciarán Ó Conaire, and Josh Cox for lending their time and voices to this project.Music: "Happy Happy Game Show" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/Raygun gives you a window into the real user-experience for your software. With a few minutes of setup, all the errors, crashes, and performance issues will be identified for you, all in one tool. Not only does it make your applications better, with Raygun APM, it proactively identifies performance issues and builds a workflow for solving them. Raygun APM sorts through the mountains of data for you, surfacing the most important issues so they can be prioritized, triaged and acted on, cutting your Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR) and keeping your users happy.Now’s the time to sign up. In a few minutes, you can have a build of your app with Raygun integration, and you’ll be surprised at how many issues it can identify. There’s nothing to lose with a 14-day free trial, and there are pricing options available that fit any team size. [Advertisement] Continuously monitor your servers for configuration changes, and report when there's configuration drift. Get started with Otter today!
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by snoofle on (#3PP8R)
For decades, I worked in an industry where you were never allowed to say no to a user, no matter how ridiculous the request. You had to suck it up and figure out a way to deliver on insane requests, regardless of the technical debt they inflicted.Users are a funny breed. They say things like I don't care if the input dialog you have works; the last place I worked had a different dialog to do the same thing, and I want that dialog here! With only one user saying stuff like that, it's semi-tolerable. When you have 700+ users and each of them wants a different dialog to do the same thing, and nobody in management will say no, you need to start creating table-driven dialogs (x-y coordinates, width, height, label phrasing, field layout within the dialog, different input formats, fonts, colors and so forth). Multiply that by the number of dialogs in your application and it becomes needlessly pointlessly impossibly difficult.But it never stops there. Often, one user will request that you move a field from another dialog onto their dialog - just for them. This creates all sorts of havoc with validation logic. Multiply it by hundreds of users and you're basically creating a different application for each of them - each with its own validation logic, all in the same application.After just a single handful of users demanding changes like this, it can quickly become a nightmare. Worse, once it starts, the next user to whom you say no tells you that you did it for the other guy and so you have to do it for them too! After all, each user is the most important user, right?It doesn't matter that saying no is the right thing to do. It doesn't matter that it will put a zero-value load on development and debugging time. It doesn't matter that sucking up development time to do it means there are less development hours for bug fixes or actual features.When management refuses to say no, it can turn your code into a Pandora's-Box-o-WTFâ„¢However, there is hope. There is a way to tell the users no without actually sayingno. It's by getting them to say it for you and then withdrawing their urgent, can't-live-without-it, must-have-or-the-world-will-end request.You may ask how?The trick is to make them see the actual cost of implementing their teeny tiny little feature.
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by snoofle on (#3NM8R)
Every time you change existing code, you break some other part of the system. You may not realize it, but you do. It may show up in the form of a broken unit test, but that presumes that a) said unit test exists, and b) it properly tests the aspect of the code you are changing. Sadly, more often than not, there is either no test to cover your change, or any test that does exist doesn't handle the case you are changing.This is especially true if the thing you are changing is simple. It is even more true when changing something as complex as working with a boolean.Mr A. was working at a large logistics firm that had an unusual error where a large online retailer was accidentally overcharged by millions of dollars. When large companies send packages to logistics hubs for shipment, they often send hundreds or thousands of them at a time on the same pallet, van or container (think about companies like Amazon). The more packages you send in these batches the less you pay (a single lorry is cheaper than a fleet of vans). These packages are lumped together and billed at a much lower rate than you or I would get.One day, a particular developer saw something untidy in the code - an uninitialized Boolean variable in one of the APIs. The entire code change was from this:
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by snoofle on (#3N1G3)
Have you ever secured something with a lock? The intent is that at some point in the future, you'll use the requisite key to regain access to it. Of course, the underlying assumption is that you actually have the key. How do you open a lock once you've lost the key? That's when you need to get creative. Lock picks. Bolt cutters. Blow torch. GAU-8...In 2004, Ben S. went on a solo bicycle tour, and for reasons of weight, his only computer was a Handspring Visor Deluxe PDA running Palm OS. He had an external, folding keyboard that he would use to type his notes from each day of the trip. To keep these notes organized by day, he stored them in the Datebook (calendar) app as all-day events. The PDA would sync with a desktop computer using a Handspring-branded fork of the Palm Desktop software. The whole Datebook could then be exported as a text file from there. As such, Ben figured his notes were safe. After the trip ended, he bought a Windows PC that he had until 2010, but he never quite got around to exporting the text file. After he switched to using a Mac, he copied the files to the Mac and gave away the PC.Ten years later, he decided to go through all of the old notes, but he couldn't open the files!Uh oh.The Handspring company had gone out of business, and the software wouldn't run on the Mac. His parents had the Palm-branded version of the software on one of their older Macs, but Handspring used a different data file format that the Palm software couldn't open. His in-laws had an old Windows PC, and he was able to install the Handspring software, but it wouldn't even open without a physical device to sync with, so the file just couldn't be opened. Ben reluctantly gave up on ever accessing the notes again.Have you ever looked at something and then turned your head sideways, only to see it in a whole new light?One day, Ben was going through some old clutter and found a backup DVD-R he had made of the Windows PC before he had wiped its hard disk. He found the datebook.dat file and opened it in SublimeText. There he saw rows and rows of hexadecimal code arranged into tidy columns. However, in this case, the columns between the codes were not just on-screen formatting for readability, they were actual space characters! It was not a data file after all, it was a text file.The Handspring data file format was a text file containing hexadecimal code with spaces in it! He copied and pasted the entire file into an online hex-to-text converter (which ignored the spaces and line breaks), and voilà , Ben had his notes back! [Advertisement] Forget logs. Next time you're struggling to replicate error, crash and performance issues in your apps - Think Raygun! Installs in minutes. Learn more.
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by Scot Devera on (#3MFE3)
Your software is terrible, but that doesn’t make it special. All software is terrible, and yes, you know this is true. No matter how good you think it is, bugs and performance problems are inevitable.But it’s not just the ugly internals and mysterious hacks and the code equivalent of duct-tape and chewing gum which make your software terrible. Your software exists to fill some need for your users, and how do you know that’s happening? And worse, when your application fails, how do you understand what happened?In the past, we’ve brought your attention to Raygun, which allows you to add a real-time feedback loop that gives you a picture of exactly what’s happening on their device or their browser. And now, Raygun is making it even better, with Raygun APM.Raygun Application Performance Monitoring (APM) tackles the absolute worst part of releasing/supporting applications: dealing with performance issues. With Raygun APM, you can get real-time execution stats on your server-side code, and find out quickly which specific function, line, or database call is slowing down your application.You won’t have to wait for someone to notice the issue, either- Raygun APM proactively identifies performance issues and builds a workflow for solving them. Raygun APM sorts through the mountains of data for you, surfacing the most important issues so they can be prioritized, triaged and acted on, cutting your Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR) and keeping your users happy.In addition to all this, Raygun is adding tight integration with source control, starting with GitHub.Request access to the beta here. Or if you’re already tired of searching logs for clues in an effort to replicate an issue, try out Raygun’s current offerings and resolve errors, crashes and performance issues with greater speed and accuracy. [Advertisement] ProGet supports your applications, Docker containers, and third-party packages, allowing you to enforce quality standards across all components. Download and see how!
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by Jane Bailey on (#3M944)
As we've seen previously, not all government jobs are splashy. Someone has to maintain, for example, the database that keeps track of every legal additive to food so that paranoid hippies can call them liars and insist they all cause cancer and autism. Today's submitter, Cass, had just released an update when users started getting the dreaded blue Internal Error screen—never a good start to the week.Everything that's added to food is added for a reason; otherwise, why spend money doing it? The additive website allows searching by function, as well as by name. For example, some items might be alternative sweeteners, while others might be coloring agents. The problem of the week turned out to be in the stored procedure related to this particular search, which was intuitively titled prc_AdditiveRegulation_GetResults_NEW. Not to be confused with the entirely unused prc_AdditiveRegulation_GetResults, prc_AdditiveRegulation_GetResults_DEV, or prc_AdditiveRegulation_GetResults_PROD.As Cass quickly discovered, prc_AdditiveRegulation_GetResults_NEW is a hefty chunk of code. 1044 lines, to be precise, all dedicated to returning a list of additives and their functions. After hours of searching, Cass managed to isolate the portion that was causing the problem:
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by snoofle on (#3K7H2)
Booleans. One would think that simple true and false would be sufficient to represent all the possible values. However, even more than dates, they are one of the most difficult things to master in all of computer science. There are all manner of possible values and many different ways of comparing different entities.Compounding everything is another dimension to boolean-ness: internationalization. After all, not every language uses English spellings of true and false. In high school, they made me take French, so it'd be vrai and faux. For most of us, we'd put the language-specific spelling in an application-phrases file, cache it and pick the appropriate spelling based upon the meaning of the required phrase. However, the underlying core values of truth/falsehood would still be programming-language-specific.For most of us...
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by Ellis Morning on (#3JTW5)
Jonathan T. had recently been afforded the opportunity to go back and tweak the very first Python-based CMS he'd ever built. Years earlier, he and another junior developer had been forced to cobble this site together with no code reviews, oversight, or help of any kind. Terrible choices had been made in the name of getting their work done.Jonathan rebuilt every page in the CMS and made sure the forms and plugins cooperated with the new structural elements he introduced. In the process, he got stuck trying to figure out how a "col-sm-6" was showing up on a particular form. He found nothing in the CSS, LESS files, or page-specific JS controlling the form. In desperation, he ran a project-wide search for the randomClass.This was the result Jonathan found in project/scripts.js, authored by the other junior dev. It explained why, for the past several years, new images on the site had randomly not worked for any discernible reason.
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by snoofle on (#3JMWG)
Banks. They take your money and lend it to others. They lend money deposited by other people to you, either as a car loan, mortgage, or for credit card purchases. For this privilege, you give them all of your personal information, including your social security number. Implicit in that exchange is the fact that the bank should keep your personal information confidential. Security is important. One might think that such a concept would be important to banks. One would be wrong.To be fair, the high ranking people at the banks probably believe that all of their customer information should be - and is - secure and protected. Unfortunately, there are multiple layers of middle and lower management (that we all know all too well) that might not comprehend that point.The other thing that banks do is nightly batch processing to keep assorted records updated, generate TPS reports, issue bills, update financial inventory, credit usage and so forth. Since customers tend to hit ATMs at all hours of the day and night, you want your systems-update processing to be able to occur while the system is live. To that end, date and timestamp ranges of transactions to be processed for a given business period usually come into play in some form. The point is that you shield your ongoing transactions from reconciliation activity by excluding it from the reconciliations. The beat business goes on.Randy worked at a major bank in the Pittsburgh, PA area. Considering that it's a major bank, it seemed odd that their customer facing website was often down for more than an hour at a time during business hours. When he started in 2016, it took about a month to get permissions to get the development tools he needed installed. Hmmm, perhaps they are vigilant about controlling access to their environments, even development; possibly a good, if bureaucratic sign. Once set up, he was assigned to work on their Web Banking app which was written not in MVC but in ASP.NET WebForms. OK, maybe they're slow to adopt newer technologies because they want someone else to beta test them. Caution can be a good sign.As part of doing his work, Randy sent SOAP messages to the mainframe to retrieve test data for developmental testing. One day, he deduced that the test social security number was that of his boss. He verified this by asking his boss what he had for lunch that day. Sure enough, there were debit card charges for it in the test environment. Uh oh.That's right; live data in the test environment. Anyone with even novice skills could have gotten social security, routing and account numbers for every customer of the bank! Rather than fight with the, ahem, highly knowledgeable individuals that thought that this was a good setup - and potentially be blamed for any breaches, Randy chose to jump ship and head for saner pastures.Interestingly, I went to their website, which states that their business hours are M-F 8AM-8PM and Sat 9AM-3PM. At 1:15 on a clear, dry Saturday when the bank should have been open for business, I called the bank posing as a potential customer to ask why their website is often down for more than an hour at a time almost every single night. The auto attendant said to try back during business hours.Hmmm... [Advertisement] ProGet can centralize your organization's software applications and components to provide uniform access to developers and servers. Check it out!
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