Alert

sebastian.galczynski

So recently I was fixing some jquery spaghetti (the bosses didn't allow refactoring, because 'We already have so much code, why waste it?' or something; fortunately they changed their mind since). I decided to display a native alert when some rare error occured (instead of failing silently). Shit, it doesn't work, I must have broken something somewhere... Then I found this gem, in a file included from somewhere 7 directories away:

window.alert = function() {};

This line appeared in a commit with an optimistic name "last fixes", in January 2017. The project is still under active development, with a completely new team and after total rewrite of about 60% of functionality.

Tsaukpaetra

@sebastian-galczynski said in Alert:

last fixes

"it's time to submit it"
"submit what?"
"the last commit you'll ever write..."

anotherusername

window.alert = (function() {
  var iframe = document.createElement('iframe');
  iframe.style.display = 'none';
  document.body.appendChild(iframe);
  return iframe.contentWindow.alert;
})();

sebastian.galczynski

@anotherusername This still shows a popup. But I found something interesting:

var frame1 = document.getElementById('frame1');
frame1.contentWindow.alert('dupa1');
var frame2 = document.getElementById('frame2');
frame2.contentWindow.alert('dupa2');

If you do this in Firefox, you only see one alert ('dupa2'). But if you delay it with a timeout like this:

frame1.contentWindow.setTimeout(()=>{frame1.contentWindow.alert('dupa1');}, 1000);
frame2.contentWindow.setTimeout(()=>{frame2.contentWindow.alert('dupa2');}, 2000);

It behaves as expected.
Should I report this on their bugzilla?

anotherusername

@sebastian-galczynski I honestly have no idea. I was running into a similar issue when I tried creating the iframe at the point when the alert was needed. The alert either didn't appear at all, or it flashed on the screen for an instant before disappearing.

pie_flavor

@sebastian-galczynski Welcome back!

blakeyrat

@Tsaukpaetra You know the difference between me and you? I make this commit look good.

boomzilla

@sebastian-galczynski said in Alert:

an optimistic name "last fixes"

This is the funniest thing I've read all week.

djls45

@sebastian-galczynski said in Alert:

"last fixes"

Maybe they meant "previous" instead of "final"?