What did I get myself into



  • So a couple months back I changed from a nice easy Java dev job to a little more interesting (and better paying) job where I would be working with multiple languages doing little jobs instead of one large never ending application. Since starting here I can't even count the amount of WTF's I've run into. It's the definition of what happens when there is no structure. From lack of source control to one small VB6 (a whole other WTF) application(4 classes in total) having over 400 global variables. But I think this represents what I have to deal with on a daily basis. it's small but it still gave me a head-desk moment

         If blnEmployeeChange = True Then
            'two lines updating employee info
    
            blnEmployeeChange = Not blnEmployeeChange
    
         End If
    

    sorry for the formatting, I can't seem to get it to work right.



  • @minkey said:

    So a couple months back I changed from a nice easy Java dev job to a little more interesting (and better paying) job where I would be working with multiple languages doing little jobs instead of one large never ending application. Since starting here I can't even count the amount of WTF's I've run into. It's the definition of what happens when there is no structure. From lack of source control to one small VB6 (a whole other WTF) application(4 classes in total) having over 400 global variables. But I think this represents what I have to deal with on a daily basis. it's small but it still gave me a head-desk moment

         If blnEmployeeChange = True Then
            'two lines updating employee info
    
            blnEmployeeChange = Not blnEmployeeChange
    
         End If
    

    sorry for the formatting, I can't seem to get it to work right.

    You were so close. Preformatted text is <pre>, paragraph is <p>.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @minkey said:

    If blnEmployeeChange = True Then
     

    This should be your canary. If the person who made the code doesn't know that booleans can be evaluated rather than compared, then then there is no hope. They don't even have the basics of the basics, and you're about to delve into a codebase of untapped, compressed methane gas just waiting to choke out your soul.



  • The real problem is that he still works here. I caught him the other day making a DB table with person_1, person_2, person_3, instead of making a new damn table.

    His reasoning?

    "so we don't have to worry about joins"



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    This should be your canary. If the person who made the code doesn't know that booleans can be evaluated rather than compared, then then there is no hope. They don't even have the basics of the basics, and you're about to delve into a codebase of untapped, compressed methane gas just waiting to choke out your soul.
    You, Sir, have a way with words!

    @minkey: I feel your pain. It doesn't help much, but you are not alone.



  • @minkey said:

         If blnEmployeeChange = True Then
    'two lines updating employee info

        blnEmployeeChange = Not blnEmployeeChange
    
     End If
    

    Been there. I feel your pain.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Lorne Kates said:

    This should be your canary. If the person who made the code doesn't know that booleans can be evaluated rather than compared, then then there is no hope. They don't even have the basics of the basics, and you're about to delve into a codebase of untapped, compressed methane gas just waiting to choke out your soul.
    Other workable analogies might involve carbon dioxide (with reference to those volcanic lakes in Africa which occasionally burp a load out that smothers the local population) or sulfur dioxide (a poisonous stench that actually supports a limited amount of life in some particularly isolated caves, but otherwise generally spells bad news).

    Mind you, a few examples round here are more like FOOF


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @dkf said:

    (with reference to those volcanic lakes in Africa which occasionally burp a load out that smothers the local population)
     

    [url="http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geophysics/lake-nyos.htm"]How Did Lake Nyos Kill 1700 People?[/url]

    Genuinely scary shit.



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    @dkf said:

    (with reference to those volcanic lakes in Africa which occasionally burp a load out that smothers the local population)
     

    How Did Lake Nyos Kill 1700 People?

    Genuinely scary shit.

    First there were "Africanized" bees, and now Africanized lakes..


  • Considered Harmful

    @morbiuswilters said:

    @Lorne Kates said:

    @dkf said:

    (with reference to those volcanic lakes in Africa which occasionally burp a load out that smothers the local population)
     

    How Did Lake Nyos Kill 1700 People?

    Genuinely scary shit.

    First there were "Africanized" bees, and now Africanized lakes..


    Before you know it there will be Africanized Americans.
    @morbiuswilters said:
    Filed under: Africanized == Will kill you

    thatsracist.jpg



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    @dkf said:

    (with reference to those volcanic lakes in Africa which occasionally burp a load out that smothers the local population)
     

    How Did Lake Nyos Kill 1700 People?

    Genuinely scary shit.

    What is scary is that if you click on the page 6 link because after reading the first few sentences on page 2 you are already bored, this is what you see.







    I guess HowStuffWorks.com should publish an article about paging then read it.



  • @Ronald said:

    I guess HowStuffWorks.com should publish an article about paging then read it.

    But they'd just make the same mistake, since they obviously don't know how paging works.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @Ronald said:
    I guess HowStuffWorks.com should publish an article about paging then read it.

    But they'd just make the same mistake, since they obviously don't know how paging works.

    Then how are we supposed to trust any of their scholarly work? THE WHOLE SYSTEM IS BREAKING DOWN



  • @dkf said:

    Mind you, a few examples round here are more like FOOF
    Thanks. That just killed about 8 hours.

     


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @joe.edwards said:

    Before you know it there will be Africanized Americans.
    Too late. There are, weirdly, people on this planet that would call this person an "African American" - purely because she's 'black'; she's neither African nor American:



    Edit 2017/5/26 - new pasted pic:

    0_1495803170917_adf27492-fcb0-4e9a-b4f7-da6bcb776f86-image.png



  • @dkf said:

    Mind you, a few examples round here are more like FOOF
     

    This a truly awesome article (awe-inspiring), and in case you might miss it from the tiny inline link, here's a related article.



  • @PJH said:

    @joe.edwards said:
    Before you know it there will be Africanized Americans.
    Too late. There are, weirdly, people on this planet that would call this person an "African American" - purely because she's 'black'; she's neither African nor American:

    This always bugs the shit out of me. I used to work with a black guy from Bermuda and people were always calling him African-American. He fucking well wasn't either of those things, he was Bermudan and he was black.



  • @PJH said:

    Too late. There are, weirdly, people on this planet that would call this person an "African American" - purely because she's 'black'; she's neither African nor American.

    Gah?



    Why would they call her that?



    Who are these people (I'm assuming they're some bizarre subset of your fellow countrymen (and also that you're American))?



    Are they just ignorant, or do they have some kind of agenda?



    In short... what the fuck is wrong with those people?


  • Considered Harmful

    @eViLegion said:

    @PJH said:
    Too late. There are, weirdly, people on this planet that would call this person an "African American" - purely because she's 'black'; she's neither African nor American.

    Gah?



    Why would they call her that?



    Who are these people (I'm assuming they're some bizarre subset of your fellow countrymen (and also that you're American))?



    Are they just ignorant, or do they have some kind of agenda?



    In short... what the fuck is wrong with those people?

    It's really because there's so much cultural sensitivity that calling anything what it really is will offend someone. People have learned that some people get upset when called black, and the "acceptable" replacement is African American. It get used so often that it becomes opaque, people forget what it actually means and just use it as a stand-in for black.

    Yes, the average American really is this stupid.



  • @joe.edwards said:

    Yes, the average American really is this stupid.

    @George Carlin said:
    Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.


  • Considered Harmful

    @mikeTheLiar said:

    @joe.edwards said:
    Yes, the average American really is this stupid.

    @George Carlin said:
    Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
    Wouldn't that be median?



  • @joe.edwards said:

    @mikeTheLiar said:
    @joe.edwards said:
    Yes, the average American really is this stupid.

    @George Carlin said:
    Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
    Wouldn't that be median?

    That's because George Carlin was just as stupid.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @eViLegion said:

    Who are these people (I'm assuming they're some bizarre subset of your fellow countrymen (and also that you're American))?
    Typically Americans. And both your assumptions are spectacularly wrong.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @mikeTheLiar said:

    @joe.edwards said:
    @mikeTheLiar said:
    @joe.edwards said:
    Yes, the average American really is this stupid.
    @George Carlin said:
    Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
    Wouldn't that be median?
    That's because George Carlin was just as stupid.
     

    Don't be mean.



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    Don't be mean.

    I see what you did there.



  • @PJH said:

    @eViLegion said:
    Who are these people (I'm assuming they're some bizarre subset of your fellow countrymen (and also that you're American))?
    Typically Americans. And both your assumptions are spectacularly wrong.

    Apologies if I offended. I just figured you were American, since you'd met enough Americans stupid enough to think everyone black must be African American.



    Oh well. If I'm going to be wrong, it might as well be spectacularly.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @eViLegion said:

    I just figured you were American, since you'd met enough Americans stupid enough to think everyone black must be African American.

    No one thinks that. It's already been mentioned, but this was just the latest PC nonsense in the euphemism treadmill. Accusations of racism used to be pretty serious, so if you wanted to avoid silly accusations, you just use whatever the currently accepted term was.

    Still, if they're black, they probably really do have African ancestry. Are non-Americans really so stupid to think that living in an island in the Caribbean erases African origins? TRWTF is when morons use African-American to refer to a French or British citizen. But like I said, it's just because the racial grievance industry has pounded the "proper" term into everyone over and over and over.



  • @boomzilla said:

    Still, if they're black, they probably really do have African ancestry.

    If you want to get pedantic about it, technically we all do.
    @boomzilla said:
    Are non-Americans really so stupid to think that living in an island in the Caribbean erases African origins?

    I don't think anyone is saying that. I don't tell people I'm Irish American because my great-great-grandparents lived in Ireland. I say I'm British-American because I was fucking born there.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @mikeTheLiar said:

    @boomzilla said:
    Still, if they're black, they probably really do have African ancestry.

    If you want to get pedantic about it, technically we all do.

    Yes, but let's be honest here. The real reason the "African" part of "African-American" is important is because they were so commonly owned as slaves. The guys in the Caribbean have the same issues in their ancestry. It'd be nice if we could somehow get past all that, and no sensible person could argue that we haven't made a lot of progress, but the end is nowhere in sight.

    @mikeTheLiar said:

    @boomzilla said:
    Are non-Americans really so stupid to think that living in an island in the Caribbean erases African origins?

    I don't think anyone is saying that. I don't tell people I'm Irish American because my great-great-grandparents lived in Ireland. I say I'm British-American because I was fucking born there.

    A lot of people say that about being Irish-Americans, though. Of course, it's harder to tell different strains of European descent apart than various Asian or African descent, and being described as a hyphenated American is much more common with those sorts of people. I don't really think or say much about my ancestry, but when I do, I mostly associate with various British / Irish sorts of places, even though more than half of my ancestry is probably German. But I generally can't understand them when they talk, so it's easier not to think about them.



  • @joe.edwards said:

    Yes, the average American really is this stupid.
     

    Goes for all people, not just Americans.



  • @boomzilla said:

    @eViLegion said:
    I just figured you were American, since you'd met enough Americans stupid enough to think everyone black must be African American.

    No one thinks that. It's already been mentioned, but this was just the latest PC nonsense in the euphemism treadmill. Accusations of racism used to be pretty serious, so if you wanted to avoid silly accusations, you just use whatever the currently accepted term was.

    Still, if they're black, they probably really do have African ancestry. Are non-Americans really so stupid to think that living in an island in the Caribbean erases African origins? TRWTF is when morons use African-American to refer to a French or British citizen. But like I said, it's just because the racial grievance industry has pounded the "proper" term into everyone over and over and over.

    Seriously, who cares? The racial grievance industry does a lot of awful shit, but if somebody wants to be called "AA", then I'll happily oblige. There's nothing unreasonable about it; it's just like when you meet someone whose name you've only read: "Do you prefer Rob or Robert?" It simply politeness.

    That said, I default to "black", if I even have to refer to race, which is really, really rare. Because it's sensible, plain and if I start calling everyone AA then that means I'm a European-American and I will not go down that fucking road.



  • @eViLegion said:

    @PJH said:
    @eViLegion said:
    Who are these people (I'm assuming they're some bizarre subset of your fellow countrymen (and also that you're American))?
    Typically Americans. And both your assumptions are spectacularly wrong.

    Apologies if I offended. I just figured you were American, since you'd met enough Americans stupid enough to think everyone black must be African American.



    Oh well. If I'm going to be wrong, it might as well be spectacularly.


    Actually, I'm African American. So is morbiuswilters. AND EVERY OTHER HUMAN WHO IS LIVING OR HAS EVER LIVED ON THE TWO CONTINENTS NAMED AMERICA.

    If I called you European-American, I would be calling you a neanderthal. Kay? Kay.



  • @Ben L. said:

    @eViLegion said:
    @PJH said:
    @eViLegion said:
    Who are these people (I'm assuming they're some bizarre subset of your fellow countrymen (and also that you're American))?
    Typically Americans. And both your assumptions are spectacularly wrong.

    Apologies if I offended. I just figured you were American, since you'd met enough Americans stupid enough to think everyone black must be African American.



    Oh well. If I'm going to be wrong, it might as well be spectacularly.


    Actually, I'm African American. So is morbiuswilters. AND EVERY OTHER HUMAN WHO IS LIVING OR HAS EVER LIVED ON THE TWO CONTINENTS NAMED AMERICA.

    If I called you European-American, I would be calling you a neanderthal. Kay? Kay.

    Please stop being dumb.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @Ben L. said:
    Blah, blah...

    Please stop being dumb.

    Sun, please stop being hot.

    Rock, please stop being hard.

    Water, please stop being wet.

     



  • @HardwareGeek said:

    @morbiuswilters said:

    @Ben L. said:
    Blah, blah...
    Please stop being dumb.
    Sun, please stop being hot.

    Rock, please stop being hard.

    Water, please stop being wet.

     


    :)

    I smiled.



  • @Ben L. said:

    AND EVERY OTHER HUMAN WHO IS LIVING OR HAS EVER LIVED ON THE TWO CONTINENTS NAMED AMERICA.

    I already made that point, thanks.



  • @mikeTheLiar said:

    @Ben L. said:
    AND EVERY OTHER HUMAN WHO IS LIVING OR HAS EVER LIVED ON THE TWO CONTINENTS NAMED AMERICA.

    I already made that point, thanks.

    YOU ARE GOOD CODER RUB YOUR TUMMY



  • @Ben L. said:

    @mikeTheLiar said:
    @Ben L. said:
    AND EVERY OTHER HUMAN WHO IS LIVING OR HAS EVER LIVED ON THE TWO CONTINENTS NAMED AMERICA.

    I already made that point, thanks.

    YOU ARE GOOD CODER RUB YOUR TUMMY

    IMMA CHARGIN MAH LASER AND RUBBIN MAH TUMMY


  • Considered Harmful


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @joe.edwards said:

    Wouldn't that be median?
    You need to learn a little more (not much!) about statistics. With a normal distribution, the (arithmetic) mean, median and mode are the same value; normally distributed variables are characterized entirely by two parameters: their mean and their standard deviation. The assumption is that intelligence (which IQ is only a simplified proxy for) is distributed normally, and that's probably true as it seems to be affected by a very large number of genes and environmental factors. (IQ maps the mean and SD to fixed — if pretty much meaningless — values; it represents the triumph of social and psychological relativism.)

    OK, strictly it would require an infinite number of random factors, but the approximation is good enough.



  • In glad I recognised Kathy Freeman. I'm not even wearing my glasses and I'm on my phone...

    @boomzilla said:

    Still, if they're black, they probably really do have African ancestry. Are non-Americans really so stupid to think that living in an island in the Caribbean erases African origins? TRWTF is when morons use African-American to refer to a French or British citizen. But like I said, it's just because the racial grievance industry has pounded the "proper" term into everyone over and over and over.

    Kathy is an Australian Aborigine. They came here somewhere between 40,000 and 70,000 years ago. I think that's long enough to be distinct from being "African".

    I'm not going to comment further about what I think about them. After a certain family lived in the house across the road from me for six months just confirmed some racial stereotypes...


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Zemm said:

    @boomzilla said:
    Still, if they're black, they probably really do have African ancestry. Are non-Americans really so stupid to think that living in an island in the Caribbean erases African origins? TRWTF is when morons use African-American to refer to a French or British citizen. But like I said, it's just because the racial grievance industry has pounded the "proper" term into everyone over and over and over.

    Kathy is an Australian Aborigine. They came here somewhere between 40,000 and 70,000 years ago. I think that's long enough to be distinct from being "African"

    Fair enough. But the population of Australian aborigines in the US is pretty small, so "probably" works here.



  • @dkf said:

    Mind you, a few examples round here are more like FOOF
    Wow.  I've worked with a lot of chemicals but FOOF is awesome!!  My favorite part:  280 g of FOOF and 34 g Hydrogen Sulfide gets you about a stick and half of TNT.  With the extra added bonus of throwing off Hydrogen Fluoride, aka, Hydrofluoric Acid which is some pretty nasty stuff all by itself.


Log in to reply