Coding Horror

lowlifer · 21-04-2012 7:41pm

Giblet wrote: »
Another reason why
13 == secondaryIndex
is the master syntax

I hate it when my teachers are right. :mad:

Anyway, I'd rather run into a blocker like this and lose 5 minutes on it rather than using the quoted syntax each and every single day.

Giblet · 21-04-2012 8:12pm

Imagine it making it into production code on a falsey value which because truthy. You'd lose more than 5 mins. Anyway, you wouldn't use magic numbers, just comparisons against values that cannot be assigned to. (consts etc)

lowlifer · 21-04-2012 8:22pm

I like to think it wouldn't, I test all my work meticulously; we also have internal standards about magic numbers and values that *should* keep us from getting in this situation.

The problem with standards is that they're sadly not always followed and eventually we run into some guy's work who isn't even with the company anymore. But that's besides the point.

I will take my chances with not using this ugly syntax.

Giblet · 21-04-2012 10:26pm

lowlifer wrote: »

I like to think it wouldn't, I test all my work meticulously; we also have internal standards about magic numbers and values that *should* keep us from getting in this situation.

No such thing as meticulous testing, doesn't exist or is a fairy tale. Anyway arguing about syntax is low hanging fruit, it's what every tom dick and harry coder can argue about. The real issues are the ones to be solved, and this is one of them.

DublinWriter · 23-04-2012 11:24am

Not Coding Horror, per se, but Horror none the less.

One of my clients, a very big organisation, had a small app developed by one of the 'Big 6' consultancies a while back.

They needed to pull data out of the app to integrate it into another in-house app.

They employed the original Big-6 consultancy to come in and code the work - essentially a SQL-statement piped out to a text file.

The invoice came in last week for the work - €32,000. I kid you not.

zynaps · 23-04-2012 3:21pm

DublinWriter wrote: »

They employed the original Big-6 consultancy to come in and code the work - essentially a SQL-statement piped out to a text file.

The invoice came in last week for the work - €32,000. I kid you not.

Ouch. Nice work when you can get it... :pac:

srsly78 · 23-04-2012 3:57pm

The "consultants" for those big companies are just guys straight out of college not getting paid very much. Their managers/salespeople etc are the ones creaming it.

lowlifer · 23-04-2012 4:39pm

How much do those "Big 6" charge for an hour?

I hope the invoice was given before implementing.

k.p.h · 25-04-2012 12:02am

The Big 6 ..???

Could someone clarify/identify ..? Through PM if necessary.?

conor.hogan.2 · 25-04-2012 12:36am

k.p.h wrote: »

The Big 6 ..??? Could someone clarify/identify ..? Through PM if necessary.?

I think they are talking about 6 of the bigger consultancy firms. Delloitte and Accenture being 2 of them afaik. A lot of them do accountancy/audit etc type work.

Colonel Panic · 25-04-2012 7:54am

It's also generally thought that they charge a lot but deliver very little and burn out junior developers very quickly.

I've found some consultants from the big 6 seriously good, others not so much, much like anything.

conor.hogan.2 · 30-04-2012 10:59pm

Not a coding horror but doesn't fit into another thread:

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/ActivityManager.html#isUserAMonkey()

Seth Brundle · 01-05-2012 9:20am

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

Not a coding horror but doesn't fit into another thread:

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/ActivityManager.html#isUserAMonkey()

Monkey is an emulator software used to stress test the application:
http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/tools/monkey.html

Basq · 09-05-2012 11:07am

Not coding so much as design but..

Hey Lidl...

You really should have an option to hide that big blue ribbon, it's obscuring your offers and there's no option to hide it!

:mad:

Seth Brundle · 09-05-2012 11:32am

Basq wrote: »

You really should have an option to hide that big blue ribbon, it's obscuring your offers and there's no option to hide it!

...except for the Close button (black rectangle with white text)

edit: mmm garlic chicken Kiev

Basq · 09-05-2012 11:45am

Ah jaysus.. just spotted that now. Still, it's hardly intuitive given it's distance from the ribbon..

Was looking for something more like this:

conor.hogan.2 · 23-05-2012 11:54pm

http://www.galwaydrumschool.com/

Ugh.

Seth Brundle · 24-05-2012 12:05am

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

http://www.galwaydrumschool.com/

Ugh.

"Quicktime needs your permission to run" - get to f...

AlmightyCushion · 24-05-2012 12:29am

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

http://www.galwaydrumschool.com/

Ugh.

What? You mean you don't like it when text follows your cursor across the screen.

conor.hogan.2 · 24-05-2012 1:57am

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

What? You mean you don't like it when text follows your cursor across the screen.

I don't like any of it. It is the worst website I have seen by far

Even the source is annoying. The music is only minorly funky, not funky enough to warrant auto playing….

AlmightyCushion · 24-05-2012 2:00am

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

I don't like any of it. It is the worst website I have seen by far

Even the source is annoying. The music is only minorly funky, not funky enough to warrant auto playing….

I've seen worse, but they were ones that were deliberately awful. I did see one that was worse than that (and it was a lot worse) but I can't remember the link.

conor.hogan.2 · 24-05-2012 2:02am

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

I've seen worse, but they were ones that were deliberately awful. I did see one that was worse than that (and it was a lot worse) but I can't remember the link.

I saw a few that were worse but as you say I then found out they were deliberately bad for one reason or another.

This looks 100% genuine as far as I can tell.

zynaps · 24-05-2012 2:02am

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

http://www.galwaydrumschool.com/

Now that's a classy website! Not in the least bit tacky and 1998. With these Ferrero Rocher you're really spoiling us...

Korvanica · 24-05-2012 3:32pm

Kill it with fire !

Am I the only one who played with the text for a few minutes? :pac:

Basq · 24-05-2012 3:39pm

The most hideous site I've seen recently is the official website for 'Game Of Thrones' author George R.R Martin.

Surely with the surge both in sales and visitors due to the TV series, someone who represents him would do something with it.

Varying hues of purple.. really?!

allaboutclicks · 24-05-2012 6:58pm

I know as web designer I shouldn't admit this - but I really like that design. It's so 90s. I think it's cute out.

StupidLikeAFox · 02-06-2012 1:46am

I found the little text following the cursor a sorta cool. Probably wont be seeing it on Google, Amazon or Facebook or anytime soon

matrim · 02-06-2012 11:26pm

ColHol wrote: »

I found the little text following the cursor a sorta cool. Probably wont be seeing it on Google, Amazon or Facebook or anytime soon

When I first learned JavaScript back in about 1999, that was one of the first things I learned and I thought it was so amazing

Seth Brundle · 03-06-2012 10:53am

matrim wrote: »

When I first learned JavaScript back in about 1999, that was one of the first things I learned and I thought it was so amazing

I learnt it about then too. Never thought it was cool though!

Mr.Plough · 06-06-2012 11:42pm

So for my masters thesis I picked 5 topics and got my 4th choice, which involves developing a coordinate system using the Xbox kinect. My degree is mechanical engineering why is this even an option. It sounded a hell of a lot easier than it is and I have just about zero programming experience.

Has anyone worked with the Kinect SDK here?

John_Mc · 08-06-2012 11:35am

Mr.Plough wrote: »

So for my masters thesis I picked 5 topics and got my 4th choice, which involves developing a coordinate system using the Xbox kinect. My degree is mechanical engineering why is this even an option. It sounded a hell of a lot easier than it is and I have just about zero programming experience.

Has anyone worked with the Kinect SDK here?

Not really the thread to post this, would be better to post it in it's own so it gets attention from people who may be experienced with it.

Raging_Ninja · 15-06-2012 6:28pm

Mr.Plough wrote: »

So for my masters thesis I picked 5 topics and got my 4th choice, which involves developing a coordinate system using the Xbox kinect. My degree is mechanical engineering why is this even an option. It sounded a hell of a lot easier than it is and I have just about zero programming experience.

Has anyone worked with the Kinect SDK here?

its the design tool of the future. kinect has lots of uses outside of gaming in many various fields, from a learning tool for mentally challenged kids, to assisting in surgery, to designing structures.

it'll be a good project, sounds interesting and will stand by you in the future.

Mr.Plough · 25-09-2012 11:05pm

Mr.Plough wrote: »

So for my masters thesis I picked 5 topics and got my 4th choice, which involves developing a coordinate system using the Xbox kinect. My degree is mechanical engineering why is this even an option. It sounded a hell of a lot easier than it is and I have just about zero programming experience.

Has anyone worked with the Kinect SDK here?

Got a 1st :eek: Turned out to be quite enjoyable once the panic stage was over.

zynaps · 25-09-2012 11:25pm

Mr.Plough wrote: »

Got a 1st :eek: Turned out to be quite enjoyable once the panic stage was over.

Excellent, nicely done! I'm sure the skills you picked up will come in handy in future

evercloserunion · 04-10-2012 12:35am

Something very endearing about that GRRM site.

Boards.ie: Danny · 16-10-2012 11:30am

So we had a problem on Boards I'm working through fixing where we update a thread prefix, rebuild the cache but the cache still has the old phrase. I've narrowed it down to a function, but the docblock has made me wonder if I should look within at all

[php]
/**
* Reads a language or languages and updates the language db table with the denormalized phrase cache
*
* @param integer ID of language to be built; if -1, build all
* @param integer Not sure actually... any ideas?
*/
function build_language($languageid = -1, $phrasearray = 0)[/php]

If the programmer doesn't know what a parameter does, do I really want to fix this? Thanks vBulletin

Capt'n Midnight · 16-10-2012 12:34pm

Boards.ie: Danny wrote: »

If the programmer doesn't know what a parameter does, do I really want to fix this? Thanks vBulletin

phrasearray ?

LOL reminds me of ye olde Netware - hadn't realised that Vaxen used too

FIRE PHASERS 3 TIMES

donalg1 · 16-10-2012 12:38pm

Basq wrote: »

The most hideous site I've seen recently is the official website for 'Game Of Thrones' author George R.R Martin.

Surely with the surge both in sales and visitors due to the TV series, someone who represents him would do something with it.

Varying hues of purple.. really?!

:eek:

I can only do the most basic sites using HTML and CSS learned in the evenings through W3 Schools and a few other books and all I can say is wow that site is awful, what the hell are they thinking.

ChRoMe · 08-11-2012 5:46pm

Boards.ie: Danny wrote: »

So we had a problem on Boards I'm working through fixing where we update a thread prefix, rebuild the cache but the cache still has the old phrase. I've narrowed it down to a function, but the docblock has made me wonder if I should look within at all

[php]
/**
* Reads a language or languages and updates the language db table with the denormalized phrase cache
*
* @param integer ID of language to be built; if -1, build all
* @param integer Not sure actually... any ideas?
*/
function build_language($languageid = -1, $phrasearray = 0)[/php]

If the programmer doesn't know what a parameter does, do I really want to fix this? Thanks vBulletin

You are working in PHP, not knowing what that param does is the least of your problems tbh.

Boards.ie: Danny · 08-11-2012 5:51pm

ChRoMe wrote: »

You are working in PHP, not knowing what that param does is the least of your problems tbh.

Without PHP you wouldn't have anywhere to write that post, lets leave the language wars for another thread?

evercloserunion · 08-11-2012 6:29pm

Boards.ie: Danny wrote: »

Without PHP you wouldn't have anywhere to write that post, lets leave the language wars for another thread?

I agree about leaving the language wars to another thread, but it's hardly the case that if PHP did not exist nobody would write online forums.

Boards.ie: Danny · 08-11-2012 7:28pm

That's not what I was implying at all. My point was (and is) that for 12 years now boards has been running on PHP, clearly it's not all a coding horror.

But again, this begins to fall into a language debate so I'll bow out of this discussion

awec · 09-11-2012 2:27am

People who write:

if(var == true) { return true; } else { return false; }

should have their nipples wired to an electric fence.

I've also recently seen:

public string MyFunc()
{
    try
    {
         DoWork();
         return "success";
    }
    catch(Exception e)
    {
        return e.Message;
    }
}

and then with a nice:

if MyFunc == "success"

Le sigh....

Colonel Panic · 09-11-2012 11:11am

Big time. Another one is functions/methods that return a boolean for success that look like this

bool GodClass::MakeTheMagicHappen() 
{ 
	/* loads of stuff with no error checking or exception handling */ 
	return true; 
}

Except marks when the function takes no params and touches lots of member variables and a couple of globals too.

COYW · 09-11-2012 3:31pm

awec wrote: »
People who write:
if(var == true) { return true; } else { return false; }
should have their nipples wired to an electric fence.

That is an absolute belter, I have to admit. I just finished on the most demoralizing project ever. Stuck with a lead who only ever learned .Net 2.0 and thinks all future frameworks, generics, programming against interfaces and LINQ are "a load of sh1te". They were Agile too, meaning that they documented nothing. I was told not to comment my code, as it was a "waste of time". Apparently, that is classic Agile!

srsly78 · 09-11-2012 4:07pm

COYW wrote: »

Apparently, that is classic Agile!

I'm glad it has a name.

L.Jenkins · 12-11-2012 10:40pm

COYW wrote: »

I was told not to comment my code, as it was a "waste of time". Apparently, that is classic Agile!

Hide the simplest of error with a code segment and send him on a goose chase. Drive commenting into him!

Sparks · 13-11-2012 12:47am

COYW wrote: »

They were Agile too, meaning that they documented nothing.

If I ever go postal, I suspect that this may well play a major role in why.

ObHorror from my past, paraphrased for NDA reasons:

...
// Using if/then here instead of switch as it's more efficient
if () 
{
...
} 
else if ()
{
...
}
else if ()
...[b][i]repeats for approximately 14,000 lines of code[/b][/i]...

Not a typo. Fourteen Thousand Lines in an if/then/else structure, done because an earlier programmer thought that that was more efficient than switch().

There wasn't a brick in a sock large enough to beat them with...

Capt'n Midnight · 13-11-2012 11:30pm

Sparks wrote: »

Not a typo. Fourteen Thousand Lines in an if/then/else structure, done because an earlier programmer thought that that was more efficient than switch().

There wasn't a brick in a sock large enough to beat them with...

I had to change a switch to nested if

But that was in Power Basic back in 1990 and needed to run on an 8MHz 8086.

Sparks · 16-11-2012 11:33pm

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

I had to change a switch to nested if
But that was in Power Basic back in 1990 and needed to run on an 8MHz 8086.

BASIC?

#define ALLBETS 0 /*

*/

But my horror was in C++ (well, C---- really)

Coding Horror

Comments