The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

Classic WTF: Take the Bus

by Remy Porter in Feature Articles on 2025-06-23

It's summer break time, here at TDWTF, and based on this classic, we shouldn't be traveling by bus. Original --Remy

Rachel started working as a web developer for the local bus company. The job made her feel young, since the buses, the IT infrastructure, and most of their back-office code was older than she was. The bus fare-boxes were cash only, and while you could buy a monthly pass, it was just a little cardboard slip that you showed the driver. Their accounting system ran on a mainframe, their garage management software was a 16-bit DOS application. Email ran on an Exchange 5.5 server.

7 comments - Last comment @ 11:20

Colophony

by Lyle Seaman in Error'd on 2025-06-20

Just a quick note this week: I discovered that many people have been sending in submissions for this column and designating them for CodeSod by mistakes. Consequently, there is an immense backlog of material from which to choose. An abundance of riches! We will be seeing some older items in the future. For today, a collection of colons:

Bill NoLastName , giving away clues to his banking security questions online: "If had known there was a limit, I would have changed my daughter's middle name. I've been caught by this before - my dad has only a middle initial (no middle name)."

24 comments - Last comment @ 11:12

Using the Old Bean

by Remy Porter in CodeSOD on 2025-06-19

If you write a lot of Java, you're going to end up writing a lot of getters and setters. Without debating the merits of loads of getters and setters versus bare properties, ideally, getters and setters are the easiest code to write. Many IDEs will just generate them for you! How can you screw up getters and setters?

Well, Dave found someone who could.

7 comments - Last comment @ 2025-06-20

Stop Being So ####

by Remy Porter in CodeSOD on 2025-06-18

Many a network admin has turned to the siren song of Perl to help them automate managing their networks. Frank's predecessor is no exception.

They also got a bit combative about people critiquing their Perl code:

19 comments - Last comment @ 00:49

A Second Date

by Remy Porter in CodeSOD on 2025-06-17

Ah, bad date handling. We've all seen it. We all know it. So when Lorenzo sent us this C# function, we almost ignored it:

private string GetTimeStamp(DateTime param)
{
    string retDate = param.Year.ToString() + "-";
    if (param.Month < 10)
        retDate = retDate + "0" + param.Month.ToString() + "-";
    else
        retDate = retDate + param.Month.ToString() + "-";

    if (param.Day < 10)
        retDate = retDate + "0" + param.Day.ToString() + " ";
    else
        retDate = retDate + param.Day.ToString() + " ";

    if (param.Hour < 10)
        retDate = retDate + "0" + param.Hour.ToString() + ":";
    else
        retDate = retDate + param.Hour.ToString() + ":";

    if (param.Minute < 10)
        retDate = retDate + "0" + param.Minute.ToString() + ":";
    else
        retDate = retDate + param.Minute.ToString() + ":";

    if (param.Second < 10)
        retDate = retDate + "0" + param.Second.ToString() + ".";
    else
        retDate = retDate + param.Second.ToString() + ".";

    if (param.Millisecond < 10)
        retDate = retDate + "0" + param.Millisecond.ToString();
    else
        retDate = retDate + param.Millisecond.ToString();

    return retDate;
}

16 comments - Last comment @ 2025-06-19

The Firefox Fix

by Remy Porter in CodeSOD on 2025-06-16

Yitzchak was going through some old web code, and found some still in-use JavaScript to handle compatibility issues with older Firefox versions.

if ($.browser.mozilla &&
    $.browser.version.slice(0, 1) == '1')
{
    …
}

17 comments - Last comment @ 2025-06-18

Squaring the Circle

by Lyle Seaman in Error'd on 2025-06-13

Time Lord Jason H. has lost control of his calendar. "This is from my credit card company. A major company you have definitely heard of and depending upon the size of the area you live in, they may even have a bank branch near you. I've reloaded the page and clicked the sort button multiple times to order the rows by date in both ascending and descending order. It always ends up the same. May 17th and 18th happened twice, but not in the expected order." I must say that it is more fun when we know who they are.

10 comments - Last comment @ 2025-06-16

Gridding My Teeth

by Remy Porter in CodeSOD on 2025-06-12

Dan's co-workers like passing around TDWTF stories, mostly because seeing code worse than what they're writing makes them feel less bad about how often they end up hacking things together.

One day, a co-worker told Dan: "Hey, I think I found something for that website with the bad code stories!"

5 comments - Last comment @ 2025-06-13

Credit Card Sins

by Ellis Morning in Feature Articles on 2025-06-11

Our anonymous submitter, whom we'll call Carmen, embarked on her IT career with an up-and-coming firm that developed and managed eCommerce websites for their clients. After her new boss Russell walked her around the small office and introduced her to a handful of coworkers, he led her back to his desk to discuss her first project. Carmen brought her laptop along and sat down across from Russell, poised to take notes.

Russell explained that their newest client, Sharon, taught CPR classes. She wanted her customers to be able to pay and sign up for classes online. She also wanted the ability to charge customers a fee in case they cancelled on her.

20 comments - Last comment @ 2025-06-17

The Pirate's Code

by Remy Porter in CodeSOD on 2025-06-10

We've talked about ASP .Net WebForms in the past. In this style of development, everything was event driven: click a button, and the browser sends an HTTP request to the server which triggers a series of events, including a "Button Click" event, and renders a new page.

When ASP .Net launched, one of the "features" was a lazy repaint in browsers which supported it (aka, Internet Explorer), where you'd click the button, the page would render on the server, download, and then the browser would repaint only the changed areas, making it feel more like a desktop application, albeit a laggy one.

21 comments - Last comment @ 2025-06-12

A Real POS Report

by Remy Porter in CodeSOD on 2025-06-09

Eddie's company hired a Highly Paid Consultant to help them retool their systems for a major upgrade. Of course, the HPC needed more and more time, and the project ran later and later and ended up wildly over budget, so the HPC had to be released, and Eddie inherited the code.

What followed was a massive crunch to try and hit absolutely hard delivery dates. Management didn't want their team "rewriting" the expensive code they'd already paid for, they just wanted "quick fixes" to get it live. Obviously, the HPC's code must be better than theirs, right?

13 comments - Last comment @ 2025-06-11

There's No Place Like

by Lyle Seaman in Error'd on 2025-06-06

... London!
This week, we're showcasing some multiple submissions from two regular participants who fell into the theme. Everybody else is just going to have to wait for their turn next week.

Frist up it's Daniel D. "I wanted to see events for the dates I would be in London. Is Skiddle (the website in question) telling me I should come to London more often?" They're certainly being very generous with their interpretation of dates.

14 comments - Last comment @ 2025-06-09

Integral to a Database Read

by Remy Porter in CodeSOD on 2025-06-05

One of the key points of confusion for people unfamiliar with Java is the distinction between true object types, like Integer, and "primitive" types, like int. This is made worse by the collection types, like ArrayList, which needs to hold a true object type, but can't hold a primitive. A generic ArrayList<Integer> is valid, but ArrayList<int> won't compile. Fortunately for everyone, Java automatically "boxes" types- at least since Java 5, way back in 2004- so integerList.add(5) and int n = integerList.get(0) will both work just fine.

Somebody should have told that to Alice's co-worker, who spends a lot of code to do some type gymnastics that they shouldn't have:

17 comments - Last comment @ 2025-06-17

Anything and Everything

by Remy Porter in CodeSOD on 2025-06-04

Today's short function comes from Janusz, and it's anything you want it to be:

public static function isAnything($data)
{
    return true;
}

24 comments - Last comment @ 2025-06-06

Continuous Installation

by Remy Porter in CodeSOD on 2025-06-03

A recent code-review on a new build pipeline got Sandra's attention (previously). The normally responsible and reliable developer responsible for the commit included this in their Jenkinsfile:

sh '''
if ! command -v yamllint &> /dev/null; then
	if command -v apt-get &> /dev/null; then
	apt-get update && apt-get install -y yamllint
	elif command -v apk &> /dev/null; then
	apk add --no-cache yamllint
	elif command -v pip3 &> /dev/null; then
	pip3 install --break-system-packages yamllint
	fi
fi
find . -name '*.yaml' -exec yamllint {} \\; || true
find . -name '*.yml' -exec yamllint {} \\; || true
'''

12 comments - Last comment @ 2025-06-04

Making a Pass of Yourself

by Ellis Morning in Feature Articles on 2025-06-02

Frederico planned to celebrate the new year with friends at the exotic international tourist haven of Molvania. When visiting the area, one could buy and use a MolvaPass (The Most Passive Way About Town!) for free or discounted access to cultural sites, public transit, and more. MolvaPasses were available for 3, 7, or 365 days, and could be bought in advance and activated later.

16 comments - Last comment @ 2025-06-06

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