I'm always amazed that this Web Application Suite actually works



  •  I'm admin of a Suite of 3rd party Web Apps. The thing is the are all still on good old ASP. For one of the Apps we have looked at the new .net version but that one was slower, had less features, a worse UI and was full of bugs.

     Just now and then when I try to figure out something (like now how they use their "special oracle add-on") I have a look at the ASP and VBScript. I'm always amazed that mostly these apps do work. The whole design is so convoluted I still don't really get it but thanks to Notepad++ "Find in Files" you mostly get to were you want to be.

    The whole app is a WTF and you always find something funny. One of the Apps was initially financed by the company I work for so know, like over 10 years after you still always find some references to my company. But what I found today is not a code snippet but a comment and it basically tells you in 1 Line what a big mess this whole thing is:

    [code]'TRM 5/21/2008: Horrible hack to get around Bug-96385, hopefully without affecting the other Web Apps [/code]

    I especially like the "hopefully". My experience is exactly that: They never really test much as in new versions you will always find a couple of bugs in the first 5 min you do some very basic user actions. In one case clicking on "Help" crashed IE and IE is the only officially supported browser. Yes, some parts of the Apps do not Work in Firefox and the UI is mostly garbeled and unusable in Firefox.

     



  • I get what you're saying, I've seen some legacy systems like that... They work, but nobody's brave enough to touch a line of code in them since if you break it (and then ofcourse must fix it), you risk being responsible for said app for the remainder of it's life (or yours, whichever is the shorter). The thing is that the original app has probably had like 100 man-years of testing and debugging, and that some time before you started your career it became "fit for purpose", or maybe the purpose just got sock of waiting and became fit for the software at the time.

    People just get used to how stuff works over time, and this is where Stockholm syndrome can set in.

    I once replaced a system which was used in a way which often required frequent updates to a single field on 1K plus records at a time. The old system required this to be done one record at a time, our new system had a Multi-Select-Edit feature, So you could select those 1K records, set the field, press save, and you're done. The old system had a thing called "auto-save" which basically saved the record when you pressed the "next" button (which in the previous system moved to the next record). After our first release the lack of the "next" and "auto-save" features were viewed as serious deficiencies by our users. Some of which said they found the system unusable without them. When we pleaded with them to use the multi-select-edit feature, they didn't really take to it :'(

     Aparently it was "too complicated."

    So we added "Auto-save", and a "next" button to our V2 release, and everyone was happy. 



  • Software Stockholm Syndrome (SSS).  A new acronym has been born this day.



  • @Anketam said:

    Software Stockholm Syndrome (SSS).  A new acronym has been born this day.

    I think you mean "initialism".  Acronym implies that you pronounce SSS as a word, which, while possible, is liable to cause you to spit on a corporate vice-president when you're trying to make polite work-related conversation in the elevator.

     



  • @da Doctah said:

    I think you mean "initialism".
     

    You're doing this on purpose.



  •  Anyway, the abbreviation 'SSS' has already been taken by Sigue Sigue Sputnik, the best rock band ever.



  • @Severity One said:

     Anyway, the abbreviation 'SSS' has already been taken by Sigue Sigue Sputnik, the best rock band ever.

    And by 187 entities in all, according to Acronym Finder, including:

    • Skin So Soft (Avon product)
    • Side Side Side (geometry rule for congruency of triangles)
    • Shoot, Shovel and Shut up (I don't know what field this comes from, but it's evocative as hell)

     

     


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @da Doctah said:

    Shoot, Shovel and Shut up (I don't know what field this comes from, but it's evocative as hell)

    It comes from any field where the owner wants to use said field and where there might be an endangered species.



  • @da Doctah said:

    Shoot, Shovel and Shut up (I don't know what field this comes from, but it's evocative as hell)
    That could lead to a rather awkward situation if someone thought that was what you meant.



  • @Anketam said:

    @da Doctah said:

    Shoot, Shovel and Shut up (I don't know what field this comes from, but it's evocative as hell)
    That could lead to a rather awkward situation if someone thought that was what you meant.

     

    Timely Dilbert reference:

    http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2012-09-21/

     

     



  • @RichP said:

    @Anketam said:

    @da Doctah said:

    Shoot, Shovel and Shut up (I don't know what field this comes from, but it's evocative as hell)
    That could lead to a rather awkward situation if someone thought that was what you meant.
     Timely Dilbert reference:

    http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2012-09-21/

    Very timely.  I will be sure to avoid mentioning throwing someone under the bus around our foreign nationals now.  But in the same spirit Brits need to not say "I will knock you up this evening" around Americans.



  • @Anketam said:

    But in the same spirit Brits need to not say "I will knock you up this evening" around Americans.

    Or "Bum a fag?", especially in the South.


  • Considered Harmful

    @Anketam said:

    @RichP said:

    @Anketam said:

    @da Doctah said:

    Shoot, Shovel and Shut up (I don't know what field this comes from, but it's evocative as hell)
    That could lead to a rather awkward situation if someone thought that was what you meant.
     Timely Dilbert reference:

    http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2012-09-21/

    Very timely.  I will be sure to avoid mentioning throwing someone under the bus around our foreign nationals now.  But in the same spirit Brits need to not say "I will knock you up this evening" around Americans.

    At the agency I used to work for, there was a sales guy who said during a meeting, "I'll do a drive-by with the client."

    This was immediately followed by various mobster impersonations.



  • @Someone You Know said:

    @Anketam said:
    But in the same spirit Brits need to not say "I will knock you up this evening" around Americans.

    Or "Bum a fag?", especially in the South.

    "have you got a light, Mac?"
    "no, but I have got a nice warm overcoat."


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