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Ah, so you're the one that got bitten by The Spider of Doom. Or at least you're another person who got bitten by a variant of it.

One almost has to wonder if the current 35% "success rate" is for truly successful projects, as opposed to ones where the only criteria for success was completing it. An article from WorseThanFailure (previously TheDailyWTF), originally intended to explain why the site's name had changed, does a nice job of explaining just why "success rates" can be misleading.

http://worsethanfailure.com/Default.aspx This site is very funny and all about bad code!

My dear friend, I am quite sure that at the very least, you are not a reader of http://worsethanfailure.com/ There's still hope and time for those who are yet to be welcomed to the fold. My friend, read and be enlightened...

...extending Boolean logic with a third value...

Sorry, that has already been done: http://worsethanfailure.com/Articles/What_Is_Truth _0x3f_.aspx.

You're right on the point. Take the math/science out of Computer Science and you end up with 98% of all of the examples posted to http://worsethanfailure.com/ -- people writing solutions purely to convert inputs to outputs without any thought put in to doing it the best/easiest/cleanest/most extensible/etc.

Been there, done that.

http://worsethanfailure.com/Comments/Classics-Week -Immaculate-Backup.aspx

But I think there should be an option "C," though that would make this not a real t/f question:
C) WTF?!

GET isn't the problem. It's not requiring authentication for delete actions!

http://worsethanfailure.com/Articles/The_Spider_of _Doom.aspx

But what about poor developers who try to make it work for IE?

http://worsethanfailure.com/Articles/A-Plea-from-t he-Heart.aspx

You have a point. There is indeed a hint of WTF in this story. I mean, we're not talking about middleware like WMP here -- we're talking about finding files on the user's hard drive. If that's ruled to be no longer a core OS function to the extent that Microsoft are legally obliged to offer alternatives to it with the OS, you have to wonder what's next...

Newswire - 21st June, 2017

Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT) has announced they will be bundling the Linux kernel with Windows as an alternative to their own, after a 490-page antitrust complaint was filed by the Linux foundation. "We are extremely pleased with this development", Linux kernel BDFL Linus Torvalds was quoted as saying. "For too long have Microsoft been able to get away with forcefully bundling the NT kernel with their OS, forcing other products out of the market in clear violation of antitrust law as it applies to convicted monopolists. No longer!"

This development is not without precedent. After the original case in 2007 forced Microsoft to offer alternative hard drive search tools with the OS, a ruling in 2009 following an antitrust complaint by Stephen Oberholtzer had them bundling an an alternative to the Windows calculator. By 2014, after the famous Litestep case had Windows presenting the user with a choice of window managers on first boot, some have said this step was inevitable.

Asked whether there was any truth in the rumours that Richard Stallman was secretly preparing a dossier to set out the case that Microsoft had failed to offer enough choice to the consumer with regard to product names that feature recursive acronyms and references to Flanders and Swann, he declined to comment.

Brilliant, wasn't it?

but who really wants to implement things like

After seeing some of http://www.worsethanfailure.com/ OMGWTF C Calculator Contest submissions today, I do believe you could get some fine examples of what you're looking..

*hides*

You'd think so, but I think there are enough examples out there to show that there are a lot of people out there writing sub-standard code and thinking there's nothing at all wrong with it. There have been a lot of times when I was tutoring computer science in college where I'd ask a student, "Just what in the hell were you doing here?" and point to some ridiculous incantation in their code.

In particular I think people ignore that last two when they're in school, because everybody wants to look impressive and figure out the "best" way to approach the problem at hand. What takes maturity and experience to realize, though, is that elegant simplicity will always win above arcane obfuscation.

I'm not defending bad code here. I'm just saying it happens so often it's hard to really hard to criticize so much.

I know all about enterprise solutions. Those guys over at dailyWTF?! can't shut up about them. Every developer should model himself after what Enterprise Pushers say, because they obviously know best. XML, COM+ and J2EE for teh people!

I think that's the problem with Slashdot and other sites. Too often, I see suggestions that only make sense within the "bubble" of that site.

That sure sounds like the Complicator's Gloves story.

Over at the Daily WTF, they have an article titled The Complicator's Gloves. Perhaps the submitter of this Slashdot article might want to give it a once over, and if the message still doesn't sink in PRINT THE F*CKING PICTURES OUT JUST LIKE YOUR MOTHER WANTS.

True, False, and File Not Found.

-the hermit

Or, True, False, FileNotFound

enum Bool
{
        True,
        False,
        FileNotFound
}; :)

http://worsethanfailure.com/Articles/What_Is_Truth _0x3f_.aspx

Stupid engineering ideas

Beware of the complicators

Be careful though with the striking trough. It can get you in a lot of trouble [TheDailyWTF]

More horrors than you want to imagine.

We can be driven by business needs, but still, we should choose our path of doing things. Imagine business app written by marketing dept.... kinda like the stories you read on http://worsethanfailure.com/, or worse. Oh, and outsorcing has nothing to do with it, they can ignore the business' needs just as well as we can.

"Every job has its unpleasant parts, and while a F/OSS coder can skip them a commercial coder can not; if the spec calls for an embedded testing code, for example, or Doxygen comments, you put it in."

The percentage of non-FOSS which is documented and the percentage of FOSS which is documented are pretty similar in my experience. Perhaps you are unaware of the incredible 95% of software which is developed commercially, but which is not sold in a shrink-wrapped box in Circuit City. Many companies have internal IT departments which couldn't code their way out of a paper bag in VB, let alone document it. Go read the daily WTF if you think I'm lying.

"s/he might be wrong but at least the product is consistent, and not designed by a committee as it sometimes happens."

Andrew Morton. That's a name I can think of when I think of someone with vision for a particular FOSS project which are willing to say when things (don't) match their vision. Linus Torvalds also fits this bill. There are similar names in other projects, but I'm most familiar with the kernel.

"These clones haven't been weeded out by the market, and so many of them are not viable - but they are out there,"

The weeding doesn't occur at the store level, it occurs at the reputation level. All FOSS stuff is staked on reputation. If you have a high reputation, you are going to be used more and included in more distributions. If you are a crappy app, you'll never see a real user base. Since the programmer is programming for ego (see the somewhat inaccurate women/baby analogy), the programmer should be motivated to produce better work which becomes more popular. The KDE programmers sure seem to have worked to make sure that KDE is useful. The Gnome programmers have also worked towards some mindshare. Given how people used to choose window managers, but now choose desktop environments, I'd say that these programmers have changed the game wrt GUI interfaces on Linux. That sounds much like a market shift, but with eyeballs and hearts instead of money.

"Effort dispersed, spent on competing projects is ultimately wasted."

Oh, I'm sorry, I guess you're just a troll. Or you simply don't understand what FOSS is.

I've interviewed job candidates for the past 2 years for a small company and the honest truth of the matter is that most people with CS degrees are horrible programmers. About 50% don't make it past the phone interview, and of those who do, we've probably hired about 20%. We're mainly a C# shop, but we look for anyone with OOP background and if they know a C language or Java we'll phone them up for a pre-screen.

We require the candidate to do a couple critical thinking and programming tasks during the on-site interview, and you'd be surprised how bad other people's code can be. Three or more loops to collect data that could be done in one. No persistent data storage for objects. No comments in the code. Inability to fix code to the desired standard after being handed a spec. Not testing the code to see if it works (not even a paper run through).

The critical thinking exercises help us see how an individual tackles and solves a problem. We can discern whether they have more of an academic or pragmatic approach to coding. It also helps us see whether people can catch obvious answers if they're available. We use it to gauge how much direction they'll need if we hire them, and where they'd be immediately useful.

I doubt most companies are as rigorous as we are in the hiring process, but from my interviews it's blatantly apparent that the individuals who rely solely on academic credentials are at least 1-2 years from being useful to a company. Whereas candidates that do any kind of side project or personal coding on their own are more likely to be useful within a shorter amount of time.

In summary, learn the latest technologies, bring your OOP skills up to snuff, and do some fun side projects of your own choosing. There are enough free development platforms out there that it shouldn't be difficult to keep your skills in practice. And remember that just because you have a degree doesn't mean you're any good at coding.

Tip: Go to Worse Than Failure (formerly "The Daily WTF") and learn what NOT to do. So many people we've interviewed couldn't tell us what's wrong with some of the examples listed there.

When in doubt, tell the callers to move the trash can.

Just read Worse than Failure.

Buffer overflows? Create and use a SAFE version of functions... Like.. I don't know? Try snprintf with only the output buffer's size?

Somebody should submit this to http://www.worsethanfailure.com/

Good example of this here
Comments have more examples...

[The study] asserts that the United States is risking losing its global edge by outsourcing critical R&D and India is falling behind by playing politics with education.

Duke's 2005 study reported serious problems with the quality of Indian and Chinese bachelor-level engineering graduates, and predicted both shortages in India and unemployment in China. The current report finds these predictions to be accurate, with China's National Reform Commission reporting that the majority of its 2006 graduates will not find work. There are also oft-heard whisperings of a engineering shortage in India, though private colleges and "finishing schools" are going far to make up for the Indian deficiencies, the report said.

"Respondents said the advantages of hiring U.S. engineers were strong communication skills, an understanding of U.S. industry, superior business acumen, strong education or training, strong technical skills, proximity to work centers, lack of cultural issues, and a sense of creativity and desire to challenge the status quo," wrote Wadhwa in the 2007 report.

[The study] asserts that the United States is risking losing its global edge by outsourcing critical R&D and India is falling behind by playing politics with education.

Duke's 2005 study reported serious problems with the quality of Indian and Chinese bachelor-level engineering graduates, and predicted both shortages in India and unemployment in China. The current report finds these predictions to be accurate, with China's National Reform Commission reporting that the majority of its 2006 graduates will not find work. There are also oft-heard whisperings of a engineering shortage in India, though private colleges and "finishing schools" are going far to make up for the Indian deficiencies, the report said.

"Respondents said the advantages of hiring U.S. engineers were strong communication skills, an understanding of U.S. industry, superior business acumen, strong education or training, strong technical skills, proximity to work centers, lack of cultural issues, and a sense of creativity and desire to challenge the status quo," wrote Wadhwa in the 2007 report.

http://worsethanfailure.com/

'Nuff said.

Security bugs are more appropriately names insecurity bugs.

Lots of security bugs are really insecurity features.

I had a Unix system where i had a normal user login, but did not have
the root login. It was noticed that a mail client, usual for Unix,
was setuid to root - which was unusual. So, it was fired up, and
then, the shell escape command was issued. Presto. Root shell.
Very handy.

The Daily WTF has this kinda stuff:
http://forums.worsethanfailure.com/forums/

Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature.
-- Rich Kulawiec

Then you should read http://worsethanfailure.com/ to see the stupid things engineers do. Just because someone is educated in one field doesn't mean they know another. My dad is an engineer, and has been since he got his PhD at 25. Does that mean he's a computer wizard? Nope. Nor is my Godfather who is also an engineer and ends up calling his companies helpdesk for things.

Who wrote them? These people.

Either that, or you can tell your friend to strike out the clause, initial it, and ask the employer to initial it as well. Crossing out clauses, or modifying clauses to make them more reasonable, is another very "standard" practice.

"Standard" practices in contract negotiations are not always as standard as one would expect.

http://worsethanfailure.com/Articles/Security_by_I nsanity.aspx

You must not alter the contract!

A date of birth wouldn't be 9 digits by any scheme I can think of

Don't you mean http://worsethanfailure.com/? :D

http://worsethanfailure.com/Articles/XML_vs_CSV__0 x3a__The_Choice_is_Obvious.aspx

Give credit where credit is due: http://worsethanfailure.com/Articles/Rarely_Just_T RUE_or_FALSE.aspx

But its still missing some very important identifiers. We must have at least TRUE, FALSE, and FILE_NOT_FOUND!

As GP stated, you could publish on any webpage a list of links that contain malicious code in them. When Google, Yahoo, and other spiders crawl the links, *THEY* end up doing the attacking. That is rather dangerous, I'd say - it'd be very difficult to track down the person responsible, especially if the original webpage was posted on a zombie server.

It reminds me of this DailyWTF story: http://worsethanfailure.com/Articles/The_Spider_of _Doom.aspx