Not that I find it a bad thing; besides that’s one more item to add to my snob list (i.e. blog-snob, code-snob, WPRer-snob etc.)

This morning, while listening to the radio:

Woman (on the radio): … and people have donated various blogs to be hung on the Christmas tree. These blogs shall remain on the tree till January 3^rd.

Vera is trying (and failing) to picture blogs being hung on a Christmas tree.

How is that possible? Will bloggers put post-it notes on it? Oh… OOOH…. GLOBES.¹

Out shopping with a friend, who opens the door for yours truly:

Friend: Ladies first, and rapists next.
Vera: Sorry? I didn’t quite catch the last part.
Friend: Rapists; you know, guys who sexually harass women.
Vera: OH… I thought you had said something about arrays². I guess I’m a bit obsessed…
Friend: No, I’M obsessed. You are a goner.

On a different note, I’m on holiday till after New Years, so I get to finally finish upload all most of my old content with the necessary revisions… as well as diminish my review list … er, well hopefully.

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¹ In Romanian globe is very similar in pronunciation to blog.
² As in, programming arrays (i.e. lists)

EDIT November 8^th: there is a very good reason I shouldn’t post at 2:00 am; especially when I’m practically asleep¹. Hopefully, this way it’s clearer. Screenshots were created by me using photoshop (they are not from the actual website).

The website I am working on, has a lot of submission forms, where various data is being input, as well as validated and then - if correct - processed using ASP.NET. Seeing as we have a deadline shortly, debugging was high on the list. As ‘luck‘ would have it, crashes seemed to get weirder by the hour. “I swear it was working properly yesterday” could very well become our motto soon.

But back to the bug in question: a co-worker (a.k.a cw ’cause I’m lazy), demonstrated his amazing bug find.

Step1: introduce an invalid file type (in this case a fictional one without extension). Error message reads: Invalid file type. Please select another one.

Step2: keep typing away. You will eventually notice that user-editable areas are larger than they might initially appear.

Step3.1: Start removing evidence of your weird achievement. Everything normal so far.

Step3.2: Keep removing the text. Not normal anymore, but it’s a handy feature² nonetheless.

Step3.3: You’re still pressing the delete key. This feature is not quite what you had in mind, but might as well see what it does.

Step3.4: Deleting away… even though you shouldn’t be able to.

Step3.5: Pressing delete once again. On second thought it’s best to hide all traces. Popularly known as “WTF??“.

Summed up: basic submission form with an error message accessed from Internet Explorer 7 (and 6). Repeated introduction of invalid data is apparently possible to otherwise non user-editable areas (i.e. inside a span tag). And repeated deletion deletes the span tag, and a file upload input control.

I later found out that said cw managed to fix the problem:

Me: By the way CW, did you check it in Firefox as well?
CW: Yes. It doesn’t happen. But I fixed it.
Me(impressed): Really? What was the problem?
CW: I don’t know, but I can avoid it.

Since idiot-proof programs(websites) are no match for idiots (the latter being the better), the conclusion is clear. Feel free to draw it yourself

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¹ bet none of you can sleeptype: sleepwalking is overrated.
² there are no bugs, only misunderstood features.

This blog entry is courtesy of Rachael, so go thank her if you missed my blogs :razz: (typos have been fixed for your convenience ).
My debugging an application (program) at work was the topic of the conversation.

Vera: I just confessed my utter annoyance and hatred to the application
Rachael: haha
Vera: the bad part: no one took any notice, they find it normal by now
Rachael: haha
Vera: (I wasn’t whispering or anything… and I was saying it in English)
Rachael: haha.
Rachael: you’re crazy.
Vera: that’s what you get for being a programmer
Vera: you go nuts!
Rachael: haha.
Rachael: absolutely.
Rachael: you weren’t nuts 5 years ago.
Vera: yeah… I was cute¹

The fact that I told Rachael I would copy, paste and mail it to myself so I won’t forget till I get home, further re-enforced her impression. Then again, you get a free plug
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¹ this in reference to Rachael’s assessment of my first site; Internet Explorer users beware of background music (can’t be turned off)