The Weird and The Wonderful

The Weird and The Wonderful forum is a place to post Coding Horrors, Worst Practices, and the occasional flash of brilliance.

We all come across code that simply boggles the mind. Lazy kludges, embarrassing mistakes, horrid workarounds and developers just not quite getting it. And then somedays we come across - or write - the truly sublime.

Post your Best, your worst, and your most interesting. But please - no programming questions . This forum is purely for amusement and discussions on code snippets. All actual programming questions will be removed.

Re: Obsure ASP.Net Bug?

musefan21-Jan-11 9:22

musefan

21-Jan-11 9:22

Sorry. Bad example. The warning I mean refers to unmatching div tags

return 5;

Re: Obsure ASP.Net Bug?

AspDotNetDev21-Jan-11 9:29

AspDotNetDev

21-Jan-11 9:29

Oh, I gotcha. Yeah, that is annoying. I usually use an asp:Literal tag to get around that.

[WikiLeaks Cablegate Cables]

Function that just to fill an empty space ....

red_moon17-Jan-11 23:00

red_moon

17-Jan-11 23:00

I found this on my friend's source code, I wonder the intention of this function .... Confused | :confused:

He create a function on an Oracle database.

<br />
FUNCTION f_init<br />
      RETURN VARCHAR2<br />
   IS<br />
      vssqlerrm      VARCHAR2 (255);<br />
      vsvalidation   VARCHAR2 (255);<br />
   BEGIN<br />
      vssqlerrm := '';<br />
      vsvalidation := '';<br />
      RETURN vsvalidation;<br />
   EXCEPTION<br />
      WHEN OTHERS<br />
      THEN<br />
         BEGIN<br />
            vssqlerrm := SQLERRM;<br />
            vsvalidation := vssqlerrm;<br />
         END;<br />
   END;<br />

It's easy to laugh, but, it's so hard to smile ...

Re: Function that just to fill an empty space ....

PIEBALDconsult18-Jan-11 2:09

PIEBALDconsult

18-Jan-11 2:09

Maybe it's a template?

Re: Function that just to fill an empty space ....

red_moon18-Jan-11 14:35

red_moon

18-Jan-11 14:35

No, it's not a template, cause it used in another routines. Smile | :)

It's easy to laugh, but, it's so hard to smile ...

Re: Function that just to fill an empty space ....

Jörgen Andersson19-Jan-11 20:11

Jörgen Andersson

19-Jan-11 20:11

PL-SQL supports overloading...

List of common misconceptions

Re: Function that just to fill an empty space ....

fjdiewornncalwe18-Jan-11 5:41

fjdiewornncalwe

18-Jan-11 5:41

Maybe he's still paid by line.

I wasn't, now I am, then I won't be anymore.

PRE Tagged

AspDotNetDev18-Jan-11 9:48

AspDotNetDev

18-Jan-11 9:48

PRE tags please!

SQL

FUNCTION f_init
        RETURN VARCHAR2
    IS
        vssqlerrm VARCHAR2 (255);
        vsvalidation VARCHAR2 (255);
    BEGIN
        vssqlerrm := '';
        vsvalidation := '';
        RETURN vsvalidation;
    EXCEPTION
        WHEN OTHERS
            THEN
            BEGIN
                vssqlerrm := SQLERRM;
                vsvalidation := vssqlerrm;
            END;
    END;

I'm not familiar with that language, but it looks a bit like it's a function that returns an empty string and has some unecessary exception handling. Quite the horror!

[WikiLeaks Cablegate Cables]

Re: PRE Tagged

fjdiewornncalwe18-Jan-11 10:40

fjdiewornncalwe

18-Jan-11 10:40

Sorry, but in this case the pre tags don't really help

I wasn't, now I am, then I won't be anymore.

Re: PRE Tagged

AspDotNetDev18-Jan-11 10:44

AspDotNetDev

18-Jan-11 10:44

Yeah, some languages are hopeless. Smile | :)

[WikiLeaks Cablegate Cables]

Re: PRE Tagged

Jörgen Andersson19-Jan-11 20:01

Jörgen Andersson

19-Jan-11 20:01

aspdotnetdev wrote:
I'm not familiar with that language

Looks like PL-SQL to me.

List of common misconceptions

Re: Function that just to fill an empty space ....

Jörgen Andersson19-Jan-11 20:03

Jörgen Andersson

19-Jan-11 20:03

Have you asked your friend?

List of common misconceptions

I don't care about your naming convention, just be consistent [modified]

wizardzz17-Jan-11 6:00

wizardzz

17-Jan-11 6:00

I was just given a project to rewrite, cleanup, and add features to. The first class I look at has these variables. It appears the original author liked to use almost every convention for naming variables, arbitrarily changing it up.

private string ip_addr = "xx.xx.xx.xx";
private int _port = 2000;
public int countQuotesReceived = 0, countQuotesCreated = 0;
public bool _connected = false;
public bool _initialized = false;
public bool BroadCast = false, ResetHighsLows = false;
public bool reconnecting = false;

modified on Monday, January 17, 2011 4:35 PM

Re: I don't care about your naming convention, just be consistent

OriginalGriff17-Jan-11 8:15

OriginalGriff

17-Jan-11 8:15

Where's Hungarian?

Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together.

Re: I don't care about your naming convention, just be consistent [modified]

wizardzz17-Jan-11 8:24

wizardzz

17-Jan-11 8:24

Here it is. Note, it's on a public variable, too. I should have posted more the first time. This is a copy/paste, so this is his spacing, and his ordering of the access levels:

public DataTable dtQuotes;

private QuoteHub _QuoteHub;

private string ip_addr = "xx.xx.xx.xxx";
private int _port = 2000;
public int countQuotesReceived = 0, countQuotesCreated = 0;
public bool _connected = false;
public bool _initialized = false;
public bool BroadCast = false, ResetHighsLows = false;
public bool reconnecting = false;

modified on Monday, January 17, 2011 4:35 PM

Re: I don't care about your naming convention, just be consistent

OriginalGriff17-Jan-11 8:35

OriginalGriff

17-Jan-11 8:35

So, it should be "m_dtQuotes" anyway. Laugh | :laugh:

Make his wages as consistent as his naming conventions. Bet he falls into line quickly.

Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together.

Re: I don't care about your naming convention, just be consistent

wizardzz18-Jan-11 4:22

wizardzz

18-Jan-11 4:22

Well, he's no longer at the company, not sure why Wink | ;)

.
I was hired to fill his position.

Re: I don't care about your naming convention, just be consistent

Yusuf18-Jan-11 3:58

Yusuf

18-Jan-11 3:58

By Hungarian @OriginalGriff is looking for m_

Yusuf
May I help you?

Re: I don't care about your naming convention, just be consistent

wizardzz18-Jan-11 4:20

wizardzz

18-Jan-11 4:20

According to Microsoft and Wikipedia it is still Hungarian notation without the m_, Hungarian notation just means the type is in the name. I'll keep looking for a variable that includes the scope with Hungarian notation, though

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_notation[^]

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa260976%28v=vs.60%29.aspx[^]

Re: I don't care about your naming convention, just be consistent

OriginalGriff18-Jan-11 5:28

OriginalGriff

18-Jan-11 5:28

By Hungarian I mean the type is prefixed onto the variable name as in iCount, lpszName etc. The "m_", "p_", g_" etc. metaprefix indates the scope: Member of class, function parameter, global and so on.

Once upon a time we thought this was a good idea! But then incremental compilation meant we could go back to readable, pronounceable variable names.

(I'm waiting for the next generation retrospective on naming, when we go back to a maximum of six characters, and the first character defines it as a integer if it is 'i' to 'n' so you don't even have to declare them...)

Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together.

Re: I don't care about your naming convention, just be consistent

Yusuf18-Jan-11 5:57

Yusuf

18-Jan-11 5:57

OriginalGriff wrote:
(I'm waiting for the next generation retrospective on naming, when we go back to a maximum of six characters, and the first character defines it as a integer if it is 'i' to 'n' so you don't even have to declare them...)

Good idea. Let us know when it is released Roll eyes | :rolleyes:

Yusuf
May I help you?

Re: I don't care about your naming convention, just be consistent

rentzk19-Jan-11 6:12

rentzk

19-Jan-11 6:12

Don't remind me. I was downgraded by a professor for defining variables that just happened to start with i and j. Apparently, Pascal teaches you bad habits Unsure | :~

Re: I don't care about your naming convention, just be consistent

Ravi Bhavnani19-Jan-11 8:10

Ravi Bhavnani

19-Jan-11 8:10

rentzk wrote:
Apparently, Pascal teaches you bad habits

What do variable names like i and j have to with Pascal? Confused | :confused:

/ravi

My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536
Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware
ravib(at)ravib(dot)com

Re: I don't care about your naming convention, just be consistent

OriginalGriff19-Jan-11 8:19

OriginalGriff

19-Jan-11 8:19

Nothing that I remember: 'i' through 'n' inclusive being default declaration for integer, and the six character limit were FORTRAN.

Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together.

Re: I don't care about your naming convention, just be consistent

rentzk19-Jan-11 8:56

rentzk

19-Jan-11 8:56

Sorry, I was in a bit of a hurry. Pascal was where I was taught to always define my variables. This was not appreciated by a very old school instructor who taught the FORTRAN class. Fortunately, the Pascal lessons stuck with me a lot better than the FORTRAN ones.

Use Ctrl+Left/Right to switch messages, Ctrl+Up/Down to switch threads, Ctrl+Shift+Left/Right to switch pages.