Coding Horrors: You can gather all your technical debt into one easy framework!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Cavern of COBOL > Coding Horrors: You can gather all your technical debt into one easy framework!

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Arms_Akimbo: Sep 29, 2006; It's so damn...literal.

I started this job as a network contractor, I was only supposed to run some cabling and hook up some new workstations. Then my shop burned down and he offered me a position full time. My job now is to port this complete disaster over to a more modern and secure system than VBA in Access 2000. The best part is that there's only four full time employees here, and not a single one of them knows how the entire system works, so I'm forced to actually try to translate this disaster on my own and make it work on a new platform without knowing a single thing about operations here. (This has been live and in use by the company for seven years now)

tAutonumber has one record in it, who's sole duty is to hold the value of the most recent order number created so the table that stores the orders knows to increment the order value by one. :suicide:

code:

test = "a"
        Dim Msg, Style, Title, Response
        Msg = "Create New Order no.?"   ' Define message.
        Style = vbYesNo + vbCritical + vbDefaultButton2 ' Define buttons.
        Title = "Order Create Verification"  ' Define title.
        Response = MsgBox(Msg, Style, Title)
        If Response = vbYes Then    ' User chose Yes.
            Dim num As Long, newh As String, sta As String, newchk As Boolean
            
           
                                   
redo:
            
            num = DLookup("value", "tautonumber", "[recno]=1")
            HAWBan.Edit
            HAWBan![Value] = num + 1
            HAWBan.Update
            newh = CStr(num)
            orderno = newh
          
                      
            Dim newawb As String
            'test = "a"
            test = IsNull(DLookup("[order]", "tOrders", "[order] = [orderno]"))
              testa = "a"
                If test Then
                GoTo nextone
                End If
            newawb = DLookup("[order]", "tOrders", "[order] = [orderno]")
                If newawb <> "" Then
                GoTo redo
                End If
nextone:
            'test = "a"
        Else    ' User chose No.
            [order].SetFocus
            'test = "a"
        GoTo Exit_cmdOpen_Click
        End If
        
 End If
    
    
    
    
    Dim stDocName As String
    Dim stLinkCriteria As String
             testa = "a"
    stDocName = "fOrders"
    
    stLinkCriteria = "[order] = Forms![fOrder Selector]![orderno]"
    
    DoCmd.OpenForm stDocName, , , stLinkCriteria
    Forms![fOrders]![order] = Forms![forder selector]![orderno]
    
    
  test = "a"

# ? Jul 11, 2008 16:49

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# ? May 14, 2024 21:33

gold brick: Jun 19, 2001; no he isn't

code:

Public Enum Places
       A
       B
       C
       D
       F
End Enum

Thanks for getting rid of those magic numbers, guy.

# ? Jul 11, 2008 18:08

wolf_man: Oct 5, 2005; Nunez?

ryanmfw posted:

I've seen some elegant solutions at programming competitions:
code:
for(int i=1; i<1000; i++)
if(i==1){ printf("One");}
if(i==2){ printf("Two");}
if(i==3){ printf("Three");}
....
if(i==999){ printf("Nine Hundred And Ninety Nine");}
}
Took a team the entire length of the competition to write (6 hours), and it didn't even pass.

6 hours? this was the best I could come up with, took me about 15min.

code:

<?php
$ones = array('','one','two','three','four','five','six','seven','eight','nine');
$teens = array('','eleven','twelve','thirteen','fourteen','fifteen','sixteen','seventeen','eighteen','nineteen');
$tens = array('','ten','twenty','thirty','forty','fifty','sixty','seventy','eighty','ninety');
	
for($i=1;$i<1000;$i++){	
	if($i<10){
		echo $ones[$i].'<br />';
	}else{
		$x = floor($i/10);
		$y = ($i%10);
	
		if($i>99){
			$z = floor($x/10);
			$x =($x%10);
			echo $ones[$z].' hundred'.(($x || $y) ? ' and ':' ');	
		}
		echo ( ($x==1 && $y>0) ? $teens[$y] : $tens[$x].' '.$ones[$y]),'<br />';
	}
}
?>

Is there a more elegent/better way of solving this problem ?, which requires a few hours to figure out?

(really, I am curious)

# ? Jul 11, 2008 21:26

POKEMAN SAM: Jul 8, 2004

wolf_man posted:

Is there a more elegent/better way of solving this problem ?

Probably not using PHP would make it more elegant :iceburn:

# ? Jul 11, 2008 22:03

Sivart13: May 18, 2003; I have neglected to come up with a clever title

wolf_man posted:

6 hours? this was the best I could come up with, took me about 15min.

Congratulations! You have successfully determined that taking six hours to write a hard-coded version of this problem is indeed a "Coding Horror".

wolf_man posted:

Is there a more elegent/better way of solving this problem ?, which requires a few hours to figure out?

I think some of the more obscure selections on http://99-bottles-of-beer.net/ might've taken people a bit of time.

# ? Jul 12, 2008 02:00

Save the whales: Aug 31, 2004; by T. Finn

wolf_man posted:

Is there a more elegent/better way of solving this problem ?, which requires a few hours to figure out?

(really, I am curious)

Heh, this was fun. I don't know if this is more elegant, but it can sure spell out a lot of numbers! In Java:

code:

import java.math.BigInteger;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Collection;
import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.Iterator;
import java.util.List;

public class Main
{
  static String[] ones = { "one", "two", "three", 
    "four", "five", "six", "seven", "eight", "nine", 
    "poop", "eleven", "twelve", "thirteen", "fourteen", 
    "fifteen", "sixteen", "seventeen", "eighteen", 
    "nineteen" };
  
  static String[] tens = { "ten", "twenty", 
    "thirty", "fourty", "fifty", "sixty", "seventy", 
    "eighty", "ninety" };
  
  static String[] powers = { "thousand", "million", 
    "billion", "trillion", "quadrillion", "quintillion", 
    "sextillion", "septillion", "octillion", "nonillion", 
    "decillion", "undecillion", "duodecillion", 
    "tredecillion", "quattuordecillion", "quindecillion", 
    "sexdecillion", "septendecillion", "octodecillion", 
    "novemdecillion", "vigintillion" };
  
  static BigInteger oneThousand = new BigInteger("1000");
  
  static String spell(int i)
  {
    return spell(Integer.toString(i));
  }
  
  static String spell(long i)
  {
    return spell(Long.toString(i));
  }
  
  static String spell(String s)
  {
    return spell(new BigInteger(s));
  }
  
  static String spell(BigInteger i)
  {
    if (i.equals(BigInteger.ZERO)) return "zero";
    List<String> c = new ArrayList<String>();
    boolean negative = i.compareTo(BigInteger.ZERO) < 0;
    i = i.abs();
    int pow = 1;
    BigInteger q = new BigInteger("1");
    while (i.compareTo(q) >= 0)
    {
      int n = i.divide(q).mod(oneThousand).intValue();
      String one = n % 10 > 0 ? n % 100 < 20 ? 
          ones[n % 100 - 1] : ones[n % 10 - 1] : null;
      String ten = (n % 100 == 10 || n % 100 >= 20) && 
      (n / 10) % 10 > 0 ? tens[n / 10 % 10 - 1] : null;
      String hundred = (n / 100) % 10 > 0 ? 
          ones[n / 100 % 10 - 1] + " hundred" : null;
      StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
      if (hundred != null) sb.append(hundred);
      if (hundred != null && ten != null) sb.append(" ");
      if (ten != null) sb.append(ten);
      if (hundred != null && ten == null && one != null) 
        sb.append(" ");
      if (ten != null && one != null) sb.append("-");
      if (one != null) sb.append(one);
      if (pow > 1 && sb.length() > 0) sb.append(" " + 
          (pow - 2 < powers.length ? powers[pow - 2] : 
            "(10^" + (pow - 1) * 3 + ")"));
      if (sb.length() > 0) c.add(sb.toString());
      pow++;
      q = q.multiply(oneThousand);
    }
    if (negative) c.add("negative");
    Collections.reverse(c);
    return join(c, " ");
  }
  
  static String join(Collection<?> c, String s)
  {
    Iterator<?> iter = c.iterator();
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
    if (iter.hasNext())
    {
      sb.append(iter.next());
    }
    while (iter.hasNext())
    {
      sb.append(s);
      sb.append(iter.next());
    }
    return sb.toString();
  }
  
  public static void main(String[] args)
  {
    for (int i = 0; i < 1000; i++)
    {
      System.out.println(spell(i));
    }
  }
}

# ? Jul 12, 2008 05:51

Smackbilly: Jan 3, 2001; What kind of a name is Pizza Organ! anyway?

Save the whales posted:

code:

  static String[] tens = { "ten", "twenty", 
    "thirty", [b]"fourty"[/b], "fifty", "sixty", "seventy", 
    "eighty", "ninety" };

Bug report. Severity: Critical.

# ? Jul 12, 2008 06:04

Save the whales: Aug 31, 2004; by T. Finn

Smackbilly posted:

Bug report. Severity: Critical.

Arrrgh! *dies*

edit:

quote:

Here's a hint.

Jesus. Settle down.

Save the whales fucked around with this message at 08:02 on Jul 12, 2008

# ? Jul 12, 2008 06:10

blorpy: Jan 5, 2005

Is this going to become another fizzbuzz? As with that, anyone who posts a solution is probably not fit to do so.

# ? Jul 12, 2008 06:25

crazypenguin: Mar 9, 2005; nothing witty here, move along

Chain Chomp posted:

Is this going to become another fizzbuzz? As with that, anyone who posts a solution is probably not fit to do so.

I had forgotten that utter clusterfuck until now. There was like one correct solution in the several hundred solutions posted to that blog. It was atrocious.

And hilarious.

I forget who's blog it was, but man it must have sucked to be that guy. "Gee, a pile of morons make up my readership. :smith:

# ? Jul 12, 2008 07:29

blorpy: Jan 5, 2005

crazypenguin posted:

I forget who's blog it was, but man it must have sucked to be that guy. "Gee, a pile of morons make up my readership. "

Here's a hint.

quote:

Coding horrors: post the code that makes you laugh (or cry)

# ? Jul 12, 2008 07:41

MagneticWombats: Aug 19, 2004; JUMP!

I was bored. On a friday night. Oh god.

code:

x = [1..999] :: [Int]
ones = ["","one","two","three","four","five","six","seven","eight","nine"]
teens = ["","eleven", "twelve", "thirteen","fourteen","fifteen","sixteen","seventeen","eighteen","nineteen"]
tens = ["","ten","twenty","thirty","forty","fifty","sixty","seventy","eighty","ninety"]
hundred = "hundred"

toString :: Int -> [Char]
toString x 
    | (x<10) = ones !! x
    | (x>10 && x<20) = teens !! (mod x 10)
    | (x==10) = tens !! 1
    | (x>=20 && x<100) = let tensPlace = (div x 10) in
                            (tens !! tensPlace)++" "++(toString (mod x 10))
    | (x>=100) = let hunPlace = (div x 100) in
                     (ones !! hunPlace)++" "++
                     hundred++" "++(toString (mod x 100))
                     
nnnbottles =
    sequence_ $ map putStrLn $ map toString [1..999]

LOL fp for the win. Also there is no "and" between hundreds and tens in America.

# ? Jul 12, 2008 07:45

OneEightHundred: Feb 28, 2008; Soon, we will be unstoppable!

Chain Chomp posted:

Is this going to become another fizzbuzz? As with that, anyone who posts a solution is probably not fit to do so.

And for anyone who is...

OneEightHundred fucked around with this message at 09:33 on Jul 12, 2008

# ? Jul 12, 2008 09:28

MrMoo: Sep 14, 2000

mofmog posted:

I was bored. On a friday night. Oh god.

Oh dear, difficult to be so concise in C:

code:

#include <errno.h>
#include <limits.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>

int
atostr (char* dest, const char* src)
{
	static const char* digit[] = { "zero", "one", "two", "three", "four", 
  "five", "six", "seven", "eight", "nine", "ten", "eleven", "twelve", "thirteen", 
  "fourteen", "fifteen", "sixteen", "seventeen", "eighteen", "nineteen", "twenty", 
  "thirty", "forty", "fifty", "sixty", "seventy", "eighty", "ninety" };
	long val;
	char* endptr;

	val = strtol (src, &endptr, 10);

	if (	(errno == ERANGE && (val == LONG_MAX || val == LONG_MIN) )
	     ||	(errno != 0 && val == 0)	)
	{
		perror ("strtol");
		return EXIT_FAILURE;
	}

	if ( endptr == src ) {
		fprintf (stderr, "No digits were found\n");
		return EXIT_FAILURE;
	}

	if ( val > 999 ) {
		fprintf (stderr, "Number out of range\n");
		return EXIT_FAILURE;
	}

	*dest = 0;

	do {
		if ( val > 99 ) {
			strcat (dest, digit[ val / 100 ]);
			strcat (dest, " hundred");
			if ( val %= 100 ) {
				strcat (dest, " and ");
			} else {
				break;
			}
		}

		if ( val > 19 ) {
			strcat (dest, digit[ val / 10 + 18 ]);
			if ( val %= 10 ) {
				strcat (dest, "-");
			} else {
				break;
			}
		}

		strcat (dest, digit[ val ]);
		break;

	} while (val);

	*dest = toupper (*dest);

	return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

int
main (int argc, char* argv[])
{
	char buff[1024];

	if (argc != 2 || atostr( buff, argv[1] ) == EXIT_FAILURE) {
		fprintf (stderr, "Usage: %s [NUMBER]\n", argv[0]);
		exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
	}

	puts (buff);

	return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

# ? Jul 12, 2008 13:59

chips: Dec 25, 2004; Mein Führer! I can walk!

For some reason when I did problem 17 on eulerproject, I decided to do this for teens:

code:

if($n == 11) $output .=  "eleven\n";
else if($n == 12) $output .=  "twelve\n";
else if($n == 13) $output .=  "thirteen\n";
else if($n == 15) $output .=  "fifteen\n";
else if($n > 12 && $n < 20) $output .=  str_replace("tt", "t", $numbers[$n % 10] . "teen") . "\n";
else $output .=  $tens[$n / 10] . " " . $numbers[$n % 10] . "\n";

I'm sure it made sense at the time, except it takes up more space.

To contribute something other than my lovely code - the Fortran code I'm seeing as a vacation student in a physics department makes me cringe. Maybe I'm just too dumb to understand what the indecipherable variable names are for (given that all the code is in a single function anyway, all 12 pages or so), or understand the flow given the complete lack of comments.

# ? Jul 13, 2008 00:01

6174: Dec 4, 2004

chips posted:

To contribute something other than my lovely code - the Fortran code I'm seeing as a vacation student in a physics department makes me cringe. Maybe I'm just too dumb to understand what the indecipherable variable names are for (given that all the code is in a single function anyway, all 12 pages or so), or understand the flow given the complete lack of comments.

Nope, that is how physicists program in Fortran. Most of the ones I've known see programing as that unfortunate necessity of doing research and therefore learn just enough to hack together spaghetti code and leave it at that.

One of my friends who is a physics grad student was handed a program by a professor written by the professor and told to set it up on a small cluster the university just bought. He was instructed that he was not allowed to make any changes, despite the fact that the program doesn't compile on the cluster due to different compilers. Yet he is still somehow supposed to make this work.

# ? Jul 13, 2008 00:58

grapesmoker: Apr 19, 2003; This moon-cheese will make me very rich... very rich indeed!

chips posted:

To contribute something other than my lovely code - the Fortran code I'm seeing as a vacation student in a physics department makes me cringe. Maybe I'm just too dumb to understand what the indecipherable variable names are for (given that all the code is in a single function anyway, all 12 pages or so), or understand the flow given the complete lack of comments.

See my story on the previous page! With a younger generation of physicists rising in academia, the programming standards are improving by a lot, but much of the older stuff is truly horrendous. The worst are old codes that can't possibly be changed because every useful piece of software depends on them.

# ? Jul 13, 2008 23:55

N.Z.'s Champion: Jun 8, 2003; Yam Slacker

sarehu posted:

I wrote one in XSLT

How did you do that? Wouldn't the nesting of call-templates cause a stack overflow?

Or did you <xsl:for-each select="//node()[position() < 999999]"><xsl:value-of select="position()"/></xsl:for-each> or something?

I want to see this abomination

N.Z.'s Champion fucked around with this message at 00:28 on Jul 14, 2008

# ? Jul 14, 2008 00:26

sarehu: Apr 20, 2007; (call/cc call/cc)

N.Z.'s Champion posted:

How did you do that? Wouldn't the nesting of call-templates cause a stack overflow?

Or did you <xsl:for-each select="//node()[position() < 999999]"><xsl:value-of select="position()"/></xsl:for-each> or something?

I want to see this abomination

There really aren't that many levels of recursion needed, I don't know what kind of crazy algorithm you're thinking of.

sarehu fucked around with this message at 04:27 on Jul 14, 2008

# ? Jul 14, 2008 02:31

gold brick: Jun 19, 2001; no he isn't

code:

Try
  foo1 = table.Rows(0).Item("foo1")
Catch ex As Exception
  foo1 = False
End Try

Try
  foo2 = thisdt.Rows(0).Item("foo2")
Catch ex As Exception
  foo2 = False
End Try

Try
  foo3 = thisdt.Rows(0).Item("foo3")
Catch ex As Exception
  foo3 = False
End Try

[ etc ]

This Function's common case throws away about 7 stack traces.

# ? Jul 25, 2008 16:15

gold brick: Jun 19, 2001; no he isn't

code:

 If SomeCondition.IsTrue _
   If Not SomeCondition.IsTrue _
   [...]

code:

If ViewState("UploadedFile") Is Nothing Then ViewState("UploadedFile") = Nothing
Return ViewState("UploadedFile")

Maintaining this program is a zen exercise.

# ? Jul 25, 2008 17:20

Reformed Pissboy: Nov 6, 2003

Save the whales posted:

Jesus. Settle down.

I may be misinterpreting this whole chain of events, but I'm pretty sure Chain Chomp is not insulting this thread itself, but referencing the fact that the blog on which the whole fizzbuzz thing occurred was named Coding Horror and using the thread title as a hint to its name.

# ? Jul 25, 2008 19:20

Tetrad: Nov 3, 2002

I don't remember the exact code syntax, but one engineer who no longer works with us essentially wrote something like this:

code:

void Screen::SetActiveButton( Button& button ) {
     m_activeButton = &button;
}

// meanwhile, in client code...

void SomeScreen::Foo() {
    ...
    Button* activeButton = NULL;
    SetActiveButton( *activeButton );
    ...
}

Sure, it worked, but...

This same person obviously wasn't terribly familiar with C or C++, because I caught one bug that was caused by him C-style casting a pointer to a different type that wasn't related by inheritance. He was literally getting an int out of this class where the address of an int would be in some other class.

Also a header for a function I wrote when I was in my "templates and boost are awesome" phase (which I'm still in).

code:

template< typename VALUE_TYPE >
void AddValue( const std::string& key, VALUE_TYPE* value, boost::function< bool( typename boost::call_traits< VALUE_TYPE >::param_type ) > validationFunc, bool isRequired );

# ? Jul 26, 2008 07:03

Volte: Oct 4, 2004; woosh woosh

I came across the original version of the Ken's Labyrinth source code by Ken Silverman of BUILD engine fame (which powered Duke3D) here. It's 8000 LOC in one single C file.

It's pasted here for the time being:
http://rafb.net/p/mrXyPD73.html

:psyduck:

# ? Jul 26, 2008 18:08

Zombywuf: Mar 29, 2008

Tetrad posted:

He was literally getting an int out of this class where the address of an int would be in some other class.

I've seen strcpy used on std::string, and it worked. The strcpy prototype was brought into scope from gcc header files copied into the project directory tree. With date stamps in the early 90s; this was in 2005.

quote:

Also a header for a function I wrote when I was in my "templates and boost are awesome" phase (which I'm still in).
code:
template< typename VALUE_TYPE >
void AddValue( const std::string& key, VALUE_TYPE* value, boost::function< bool( typename boost::call_traits< VALUE_TYPE >::param_type ) > validationFunc, bool isRequired );

Nothing wrong that :-)

# ? Jul 29, 2008 09:29

HIERARCHY OF WEEDZ: Aug 1, 2005

I just discovered about 120 lines of code in an application that were ripped wholesale from EX-DESIGNZ.NET (totally radical). It's also code that I have to debug and fix. The best part is you can tell it was stolen from a website because it's the only code in our 150,000 line codebase that has comments. :suicide:

# ? Jul 31, 2008 16:53

Zombywuf: Mar 29, 2008

code:

namespace Core.Framework.DataType.BooleanUtils
{
	public static class BooleanFormatter
	{
		/// <summary>
		/// returns string representation of boolean value based on passed definitions of <value>true</value> and <value>false</value>
		/// </summary>
		/// <param name="value"></param>
		/// <param name="trueValue"></param>
		/// <param name="falseValue"></param>
		/// <returns></returns>
		public static string Format(bool value, string trueValue, string falseValue)
		{
			return value ? trueValue : falseValue;
		}
	}
}

Words fail me.

# ? Jul 31, 2008 17:12

_aaron: Jul 24, 2007; The underscore is silent.

Zombywuf posted:

Words fail me.

No, see, this is great, because then you can do things like:

code:

string boolString = BooleanFormatter.Format(true, "false", "true");
MessageBox.Show(true.ToString() + " is " + boolString);

You don't see the utility here!? Not to mention the deep philosophical implications of subjectively defining "true" and "false"...

# ? Jul 31, 2008 17:46

Vanadium: Jan 8, 2005

As posted in ##c++ on freenode:

code:

iteration_begin:
std::vector<CGameEvent*>::iterator lIterator = mEvents.begin();
for(lIterator; lIterator != mEvents.end(); lIterator++)
{
	if((*lIterator)->Dirty())
	{
		DestroyEvent(*lIterator);
		//Yes this is a shame, but once we remove an element the iterator is invalidated
		// there is for sure a better way to handle this, we do not want to only break
		// as this would keep the remaining event from being iterated
		goto iteration_begin;
	}
	(*lIterator)->OnIterate(inDeltaT);
}

# ? Jul 31, 2008 18:33

chocojosh: Jun 9, 2007; D00D.

Vanadium posted:

As posted in ##c++ on freenode:

code:

iteration_begin:
std::vector<CGameEvent*>::iterator lIterator = mEvents.begin();
for(lIterator; lIterator != mEvents.end(); lIterator++)
{
	if((*lIterator)->Dirty())
	{
		DestroyEvent(*lIterator);
		//Yes this is a shame, but once we remove an element the iterator is invalidated
		// there is for sure a better way to handle this, we do not want to only break
		// as this would keep the remaining event from being iterated
		goto iteration_begin;
	}
	(*lIterator)->OnIterate(inDeltaT);
}

Would it have been so hard to keep a second vector of invalid nodes and then invalidate those after the for loop?

# ? Jul 31, 2008 18:56

Vanadium: Jan 8, 2005

chocojosh posted:

Would it have been so hard to keep a second vector of invalid nodes and then invalidate those after the for loop?

Keeping a vector of invalid nodes does not solve the problem at all because that just replaces the Dirty() check with a check against the vector of invalid nodes.

The proper solution (edit: which is not directly compatible with the guy's architecture, yeah) looks like

code:

for (iterator it = v.begin(); it != v.end(); ) {
  if (condition)
    it = v.erase(it);
  else
    ++it;
}

or, more functionally, v.erase(std::remove_if(v.begin(), v.end(), conditionfunctor), v.end()); (both from ##c++'s handy bot).

Vanadium fucked around with this message at 20:04 on Jul 31, 2008

# ? Jul 31, 2008 20:01

chocojosh: Jun 9, 2007; D00D.

Sorry, I wasn't clear, I meant:

code:

std::vector<CGameEvent*>::iterator lIterator = mEvents.begin(); 
std::vector<CGameEvent*> invalidEvents;

for(lIterator; lIterator != mEvents.end(); lIterator++) { 
    if((*lIterator)->Dirty()) { 
        invalidEvents.push_back(*lIterator);
    } 
    (*lIterator)->OnIterate(inDeltaT); 
}

//Starting at last node in case vector size changes
for(int i = invalidEvents.size(); i >= 0; i--) {
    DestroyEvent(invalidEvents[i]);
}

I haven't touched the STL in over two years though -- your code makes much more sense.

# ? Jul 31, 2008 20:42

Mustach: Mar 2, 2003; In this long line, there's been some real strange genes. You've got 'em all, with some extras thrown in.

You're both missing the real problem. DestroyEvent() takes a CGameEvent* (or CGameEvent*&); it's not invalidating any iterators. So, that comment is ironic, because the remaining events won't be iterated. mEvents.begin() isn't going to change, so re-accessing or deleting that element that got destroyed on the first iteration will probably crash the program.

edit: What's an "lIterator" supposed to be, anyhow? Loser Iterator?

Mustach fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Jul 31, 2008

# ? Jul 31, 2008 21:14

Vanadium: Jan 8, 2005

Mustach posted:

You're both missing the real problem. DestroyEvent() takes a CGameEvent* (or CGameEvent*&); it's not invalidating any iterators. So, that comment is ironic, because the remaining events won't be iterated. mEvents.begin() isn't going to change, so re-accessing or deleting that element that got destroyed on the first iteration will probably crash the program.

I assumed that DestroyEvent was going to modify the vector on its own, looking up the element being destroyed by value.

# ? Jul 31, 2008 21:39

Mustach: Mar 2, 2003; In this long line, there's been some real strange genes. You've got 'em all, with some extras thrown in.

Oh man, that would make that segment of code a lot worse.

# ? Jul 31, 2008 22:48

Zombywuf: Mar 29, 2008

_aaron posted:

No, see, this is great, because then you can do things like:
code:
string boolString = BooleanFormatter.Format(true, "false", "true");
MessageBox.Show(true.ToString() + " is " + boolString);
You don't see the utility here!? Not to mention the deep philosophical implications of subjectively defining "true" and "false"...

I can't help but feel you've missed everything that's wrong with the code I posted.

# ? Aug 1, 2008 10:12

tef: May 30, 2004; -> some l-system crap ->

Zombywuf posted:

I can't help but feel you've missed everything that's wrong with the code I posted.

You didn't post it all either, the Boolean Utilities class has four methods. Only one of which uses the Formatter method, the other two use the ternary operator.

A method so useful he couldn't be bothered to use it.

# ? Aug 1, 2008 11:03

Xenopax: Sep 27, 2002; Get pregnant using Xenopax® brand bottled semen. Trust no substitutes.

Oh god I wish I had the space to paste all the bad code I've seen. Here's a list of some of the worst:

#1 Worst
I once inherited an ASP site that pushed everything it did through a generic page called something like "functions.asp" that had about a bazillion if statements to handle every possible posting from any page on the site. For instance if you changed the name of someone then changename.asp would post to functions.asp to make the change and then redirect to whatever.asp. Also there were many many many cases where the difference between two things was one line, with 100+ lines copied and pasted, so functions.asp was like 30,000 lines long. I'm not even joking about that. Needless to say I was very happy that project was rarely used and no one ever requested changing anything large in it otherwise I would have had to recode the entire thing.

#2 Worst
The current website I'm working on is half written in .NET and half in vanilla ASP. The ASP side uses Mysql, and the .NET side works with SQL Server. Both sides represent half of each of our products, and there is hardly any sharing of information across the two. When I say half of our products I don't mean half of our store is one one side and the other half is on the other, I mean each product has half of its information in MySQL and the other half in SQL Server and each site's product pages just cross-link to each other. If that sounds confusing that's because it is, people here get lost on our site so our customers really have no hope and I'm pretty sure we make sales purely on luck. My project for the last few months has been to scrap both sites and rewrite the entire thing.

If that wasn't bad enough, the .NET side is a rather complex online-book system. This system uses a completely different DAL for the user side as opposed the admin side, and neither DAL maps tables or views to objects, they merely map queries to datareaders and have very static insert/update functions that need to be adjusted or created whenever you want to do something different. We're currently converting everything to be based on extended SubSonic objects.

#3 Worst
Regrettably this happened on a project where I was leading the development. A programmer we hired because he was very experienced (20 years) but never wrote any .NET decided the best way to handle database results was to load everything into parallel arrays. Parallel arrays that existed in the default page. So in Default.aspx.cs you would have an array for each field that was returned, for every query. These arrays were also where information that was to be inserted and updated were stored and that was handled by many many many specialized functions that made absolutely no sense to me. Luckily this was limited to just the sign-up section and didn't effect the main application and was easily rewritten. Note this happened after I walked him through our DAL as well. It certainly explained why it took him 3 weeks to create a couple of registration pages.

# ? Aug 5, 2008 21:46

HIERARCHY OF WEEDZ: Aug 1, 2005

code:

SELECT thecolumn, thevalue
FROM tblRevenue

No, I didn't anonymize that. Those are the actual column names.

# ? Aug 7, 2008 15:00

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# ? May 14, 2024 21:33

MoNsTeR: Jun 29, 2002

code:

select some_crap
from some_table@devl2

Yes, let's push code all the way out to production that depends on a database link back to development! What could possibly go wrong?

code:

exception
  when others then
    null;

Yes! Trap those pesky errors and throw them away! No need to bother even logging them I mean who looks at that poo poo anyway. loving SWEET.

# ? Aug 7, 2008 17:21

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Cavern of COBOL > Coding Horrors: You can gather all your technical debt into one easy framework!

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