Comment On Classic WTF - Pointless Pointless Pointless Pointless Pointless Pointless Pointless

> Can you guess what values are in record 494?

42 has to be the answer!

pattern:

all columns are same

and the row data is same as the row index



values in record 494 = 494, same in each column.

 

If all table data looks like this, I don't see any problem...

Redundancy is good; makes for stable programs. Multiple redundancy is thus better.
Multiplexed redundancy makes for ultra-stable programs that can even outlive the universe. I expect v2 added a third dimension of redundancy?

Very nice .. I missed this one the first time around so I'm glad you re-posted.

I've gotta say, though -- WTF with the data in that table?  Is a a huge series of 1:1 relations?

Well... at least if you lost the whole table you could easily recreate it.

Anonymous:

pattern:

all columns are same

and the row data is same as the row index



values in record 494 = 494, same in each column.

 

Wow, really? How could you spot that? You must be a real genius!

Mikademus:

Redundancy is good

Redundancy is good
Redundancy is good
Redundancy is good

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
(etc. ad astra...)

This just blows my mind. I do not see how some of these people even get into the industry. There needs to be some kind of test to spot whack-a-loons like this. I am pretty sure your brain has to shutdown before you have the capabilities to produce this kind of WTF.

.......
so this was for.....?

Oh, I get it now.  This is just in case we add a new integer between 13 & 14.  Brilliant!

GoatCheez:

.......
so this was for.....?

Connections of course!

What will really make us all sad is to learn A. how much cash this pile of crap makes for it's dark masters, and B. How much vital, mission critical personal data is stored within it's sprawling confines. Fear children, fear for your souls!

Cn must be short for ColumN. I'm pretty sure that the Cn table is used to link together other tables. Even though these tables don't have proper primary keys they probably have an id column like the Cn table (Cn_IDKEY). So when you join two tables you always need to join them through the Cn table. Nice, who trusts foreign keys anyway! Difficult however to implement many to many-relationships this way.

Anonymous:

pattern:
all columns are same
and the row data is same as the row index

values in record 494 = 494, same in each column.
 

well spotted, poindexter...

Anonymous:

pattern:
all columns are same
and the row data is same as the row index

values in record 494 = 494, same in each column.
 

All of you are BRILLIANT(sarc).....

Could this be to allow for VERSIONING, or to SAVE SPACE?????  If so, all of you would be in HOT WATER etc...  After an Update(creating a higher number) or a deletion(higher or undefined), or a recordset that wasn't fully defined(lower).  The numbers would then(horror of horrors) CHANGE!

Steve

Anonymous:

Mikademus:

Redundancy is good

Redundancy is good
Redundancy is good
Redundancy is good

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
(etc. ad astra...)

Ad Astrada ...that's that guy from C.H.I.P.s' brother! ~~

pjsson:

Cn must be short for ColumN. I'm pretty sure that the Cn table is used to link together other tables. Even though these tables don't have proper primary keys they probably have an id column like the Cn table (Cn_IDKEY). So when you join two tables you always need to join them through the Cn table. Nice, who trusts foreign keys anyway! Difficult however to implement many to many-relationships this way.

Wow, pretty good job interpreting that :) However, that's just horrible! I hope nobody got paid for that!

And what happen if you update this "central nervous" table???

I know one potential explaination for this.  Dynamic remapping and merging of data via remapping relationships.  This table is just the central relationship table. There is no question there are much better ways of doing this, but
there might be some essential feature buried way down in this horrendous logic.

Example - It turns out that Suzy Smith in CNName table has id (256) and is the same person as Sue Smith who exists as id (21).  Now I can update all data entered on Suzy to now associate with Sue without losing any orders/history/etc. 

Before making any changes, write a query to see if any entries in any columns do not match the row idkey. I have seen this done before, but not in such an... umm... centralized fashion.  *cough*

Oh I admit that printing out the table relationship diagram would be a bear.  *heh*  That part really is WTF worthy.

This was designed by a non-idiot guy withouth formal database education
that figure out how to implement a very basic database feature
(external keys?) with basic tools.



Its like some guy that dont know printf exist, and implement it with putch:



void printf( char * cad){

  while( cad[] ){

    putch( cad++);

  }

}



You can have guys that down know about open gl fog, and that try to
mimick the feature playing the alfa as the world is rendered.

Or you can have guys coding complicate calculus to get a normalized vector...  because dont know much about math.



The border betwen using a subset of something (perl, etc... ) or doing this risky workaround mess is tiny.



--Tei



captcha: bedtime <-- how appropiate, I really need cafe!

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

pattern:
all columns are same
and the row data is same as the row index

values in record 494 = 494, same in each column.
 

All of you are BRILLIANT(sarc).....

Could this be to allow for VERSIONING, or to SAVE SPACE?????  If so, all of you would be in HOT WATER etc...  After an Update(creating a higher number) or a deletion(higher or undefined), or a recordset that wasn't fully defined(lower).  The numbers would then(horror of horrors) CHANGE!

Steve

Ok, Show of hands everybody!  Who wants to hire Steve?

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

Mikademus:

Redundancy is good

Redundancy is good
Redundancy is good
Redundancy is good

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
(etc. ad astra...)

Ad Astrada ...that's that guy from C.H.I.P.s' brother! ~~

No, No.  He was the guy from Lou Grant!

Only if someone disables his caps-lock key first.

Jeremy, is that you?

Jake Vinson:

There's a pattern here, bend your brain and see if you can find it! 
CHALLENGE POINT:  Can you guess what values are in record 494?

Ummm..."FileNotFound"?

I make the following proposal: Every poster votes on the WTF quality of TDWTF with one of two smilies.

1) A smiley wailing and crying and gnashing its teeth

2) A smiley displaying bored ennui

It seems that all TDWTFs can be placed into one of these two groups. Either "Internet Jesus wept," or "It's not that bad, really. I can kind of understand it."

This would just simplify matters considerably.

- Edit -

Ok, maybe smiley 3) Cliche would be: TDWTF joke about "Brillant" or "FileNotFound"

Let me guess...

This is a new Web 2.0 AJAX pattern.

It would seem so.

CHALLENGE POINT:  Can you guess what values are in record 494?

Possible results: Yes, No, Maybe, Null.

Jake Vinson:

There's a pattern here, bend your brain and see if you can find it!
CHALLENGE POINT:  Can you guess what values are in record 494?

It would be difficult.  In order to guess, I think you have to not already know the answer.

I would like some more details about this WTF.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

    I think the real wtf is that Alex hasn't just set up some kind of system for automatically adding these wtf's.  On Sunday night he could type in the paragraph for each day, set the datetime he wanted it to be visible on the web page and be done with it.  It would even work when he's out of town!

ammoQ:

Anonymous:

pattern:

all columns are same

and the row data is same as the row index



values in record 494 = 494, same in each column.

 

Wow, really? How could you spot that? You must be a real genius!

In high-school (at least here in the Netherlands), they teach you to think like that. If I'd answer "duh" on every stupid question they asked me, I never would have made it...
(Ok, so the results will only come in two days, so I techincally still didn't officially "make it" :P)

marvin_rabbit:

Ok, Show of hands everybody!  Who wants to hire Steve?

no digg ... i mean, ... i wouldn't hire him

he can't even spell "brillant"

Anonymous:

    I think the real wtf is that Alex hasn't just set up some kind of system for automatically adding these wtf's.  On Sunday night he could type in the paragraph for each day, set the datetime he wanted it to be visible on the web page and be done with it.  It would even work when he's out of town!

That would probably violate Space Core Directive #196156!

Actually, SCD #196156 is "Any officer caught sniffing the saddle of the exercise bicycle in the women's gym will be discharged without trial."  Sorry, I must've gotten my XML config files mixed up. :)

With this WTF "exercise", I give up.  Just add this to my endless number of random posts!

 

This reminds me of a time when I encountered a WTF years and years ago.  I had just hired on to a small startup company when I was given the task of fixing a small defect in the inventory control application.  Imagine my shock and dismay when I came across this little gem:
<snip>

mov    eax, 3           
mov    edx, 1           
mov    ecx, va682    
mov    ebx, 1          
int 0x80                

</snip>
I can't image what the programmer was thinking!!!  Seeing the CnPrAI_LINK column was liking having a LSD flashback where swirling lines of code mingle with burning palm fronds and the smell of scorched flesh...

> Possible results: Yes, No, Maybe, Null.

You forgot SortaMaybe, FileNotFound and ReallyNull.

Jake Vinson:

Alex will be back tomorrow with a new WTF. For today, here's a classic WTF from me!

The real danger in this is when you get to Cn_IDKEY 214, and the value for CnAdr_LINK is 213 because 213 was null.

Now half of the stored procedures will work (that actually relate to this table) and the other half that ASSUME the values are the same break.

Usually you will see different identity seeds for each of the IDs in this sort of design.  Though that is its own WTF, but is a often used means of differentiate between say and invoice number and a customer number is many systems.  (hmm, you could just add 'INV' and 'CUST' to the field!)

EV:

In high-school (at least here in the Netherlands), they teach you to think like that. If I'd answer "duh" on every stupid question they asked me, I never would have made it...
(Ok, so the results will only come in two days, so I techincally still didn't officially "make it" :P)

Is there a difference between a simple question during a test in school and a rethoric question in a TDWTF post?

marvin_rabbit:

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

pattern:
all columns are same
and the row data is same as the row index

values in record 494 = 494, same in each column.
 

All of you are BRILLIANT(sarc).....

Could this be to allow for VERSIONING, or to SAVE SPACE?????  If so, all of you would be in HOT WATER etc...  After an Update(creating a higher number) or a deletion(higher or undefined), or a recordset that wasn't fully defined(lower).  The numbers would then(horror of horrors) CHANGE!

Steve

Ok, Show of hands everybody!  Who wants to hire Steve?

EVERYONE GET BACK HE IS MINE!!

lol captcha quality..

TomCo:

Anonymous:

    I think the real wtf is that Alex hasn't just set up some kind of system for automatically adding these wtf's.  On Sunday night he could type in the paragraph for each day, set the datetime he wanted it to be visible on the web page and be done with it.  It would even work when he's out of town!

That would probably violate Space Core Directive #196156!

Actually, SCD #196156 is "Any officer caught sniffing the saddle of the exercise bicycle in the women's gym will be discharged without trial."  Sorry, I must've gotten my XML config files mixed up. :)

With this WTF "exercise", I give up.  Just add this to my endless number of random posts!

 

ROFLMAO!!!
We watch red dwarf eps during lunch here at work. We watched that episode last week... LOL!

Idiocy++

Volmarias:

I make the following proposal: Every poster votes on the WTF quality of TDWTF with one of two smilies.

No, I think you're on to something.  Let's vote by using 1 of two SIMILES.  I propose:

This WTF burns like a hot poker in an empty orifice.  It sears and fills my goggles with tears.

This WTF is like Wonder Bread wadded up and rolled into a ball.  It can be chewed, but ultimately lacks substance.

marvin_rabbit:

Volmarias:

I make the following proposal: Every poster votes on the WTF quality of TDWTF with one of two smilies.

No, I think you're on to something.  Let's vote by using 1 of two SIMILES.  I propose:

This WTF burns like a hot poker in an empty orifice.  It sears and fills my goggles with tears.

This WTF is like Wonder Bread wadded up and rolled into a ball.  It can be chewed, but ultimately lacks substance.

Nice - like the warm sensation of steaming doggie-doo slithering between your toes on a humid summer day.

ParkinT:

Idiocy++

Hmmph!  As if we need more.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

I'll hazard a guess as to how this happened. I've more than once seen database beginners chuck everything into one huge denormalised table, because a spreadsheet is all they know. I suspect this happened here and then someone made a drive-by comment along the lines of "why the **** did you put everything in one table?" So they split it into eight tables with 1-to-1 relationships ...

Anonymous:

> Can you guess what values are in record 494?

42 has to be the answer!

I agree!

kluminotty:

This just blows my mind. I do not see how some of these people even get into the industry. There needs to be some kind of test to spot whack-a-loons like this. I am pretty sure your brain has to shutdown before you have the capabilities to produce this kind of WTF.

yes identify the anti-pattern, and where that anti-pattern commonly shows up.  So when business requirements call for x newbie will typically use anti-pattern y, instead of pattern z.  Write test that asks simple question, produce x, if applicant returns anti-pattern y not pattern z, move on.  

ammoQ:

EV:

In high-school (at least here in the Netherlands), they teach you to think like that. If I'd answer "duh" on every stupid question they asked me, I never would have made it...
(Ok, so the results will only come in two days, so I techincally still didn't officially "make it" :P)

Is there a difference between a simple question during a test in school and a rethoric question in a TDWTF post?

Is that a rethoric question question? :)

Anonymous:

yes identify the anti-pattern, and where that anti-pattern commonly shows up.  So when business requirements call for x newbie will typically use anti-pattern y, instead of pattern z.  Write test that asks simple question, produce x, if applicant returns anti-pattern y not pattern z, move on.

We have to make sure that the people making the test are themselves competent.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

Bus Raker:

Jake Vinson:

Alex will be back tomorrow with a new WTF. For today, here's a classic WTF from me!

The real danger in this is when you get to Cn_IDKEY 214, and the value for CnAdr_LINK is 213 because 213 was null.

Now half of the stored procedures will work (that actually relate to this table) and the other half that ASSUME the values are the same break.

Usually you will see different identity seeds for each of the IDs in this sort of design.  Though that is its own WTF, but is a often used means of differentiate between say and invoice number and a customer number is many systems.  (hmm, you could just add 'INV' and 'CUST' to the field!)

Dude!  Now you got me singing!

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