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Bad? - Answer

© Copyright Frank D. Kanu 2000-2008

The query was only getting bad because WHOEVER was messing with it didn’t READ ANY of the code around. That PLUS raping the original design to squeeze out something it was never intended to do instead of rethinking and designing something the “programmer” could be proud of…

Comment of the lead programmer

Does that need any further comment?

Bad?

© Copyright Frank D. Kanu 2000-2008

How is this for a check-in reason:
“Mining always resets the query now. The query setup was getting bad and the core didn’t work with it.”

© Copyright Frank D. Kanu 2000-2008

I kid you not.
No changes made
This is the original check-in reason found in the version control system of commercial software with hundreds of user.

Just in case you were wondering, yes, there were changes…

Do they ever test?

© Copyright Frank D. Kanu 2000-2008

The news are full of messages that Microsoft’s Windows Home Server corrupts files.
Then I learned today that MS outlook marks a low disk alert message as junk/spam:

Low Disk Space Alert on XXXX
Alert on XXXX at 12/xx/2007 12:01:33 AM
The following disk is low on free disk space. Low levels of free disk space can cause performance problems and prevent users from saving files on the disk.
Drive Letter: F:
Free Disk Space: 256.000000. MB
% Free Disk Space: 0.268364.%
You can disable this alert or change its threshold by using the Change Alert Notifications task in the Server Management Monitoring and Reporting taskpad.

The admin I know cursed worst than a sailor or a coachman. But maybe that was MS intention all along—to have folks curse and thus increase their work morale and output: those bad words can be very helpful at the workplace.

Two separate incidents, but both proof one thing: Testing always was and apparently always will be the forgotten stepchild of programming.

Can you share a story of an obviously untested program?

While that might be bothersome in some cases—once there are lives involved it is getting really messy.

How would you enforce more and better testing?

Maybe having the programmers / testers pay damages out of their own pocket?

Tags:

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Frank Kanu on Friday, December 28th, 2007 @ 09:59
Filed under Business, Code review, IT

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No Thinking Involved - Answer

Shouldn’t it have been declared and programmed once?

Despite what many think—copy and paste is not your friend. Why would anyone in their right set of mind want to include a parameter that is set to a specific value (not using a variable) but then check for a different value?

No Thinking Involved

...

  nId := GetIdFromDB;

  setSelectionPage(nId, '');



procedure setSelectionPage(id : integer; desc : String );

var

  myNode:TTreeNode;

begin

  bFilter := False;

  if (desc = '-1') then begin

    bFilter := True;

...

What does this do? - Answer

© Copyright Frank D. Kanu 2000-2008

As long as proper design and documentation aren’t part of the programmers work we can’t speak of engineering.

Btw, there was nobody neither admitting that code came from them nor being able to immediately explain what the code does…

What does this do?

for j := 0 to Items.Count - 1 do begin

  if ((TDataNode(Items[j].Data).NodeType = ntQ1) and (TDataNode(Items[j].Data).NodeID = Q1)) then begin

    k := j;

    Inc(k);

    while (k <= (Items.Count - 1)) do begin

      if (TDataNode(Items[k].Data).NodeType = ntQ1) then

        Break;

      if ((TDataNode(Items[k].Data).NodeType = ntQ2) and (TDataNode(Items[k].Data).NodeID = Q2)) then begin

        aNode := Items[k];

        m := k;

        Inc(m);

        while (m <= (FCurTV.Items.Count - 1)) do begin

          if (TDataNode(FCurTV.Items[m].Data).NodeType = ntQ2) then

            Break;

          if ((TDataNode(FCurTV.Items[m].Data).NodeType = ntQ3) and (TDataNode(FCurTV.Items[m].Data).NodeID = ID)) then begin

            bQ := TRUE;

            Break;

          end;

          Inc(m);

        end;

      end;

      Inc(k);

    end;

    Break;

  end;

end;

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