Every once in a while, employees (and employers as well, I guess) are required to take a so called work protection test, to show that they are aware of work hazards and are constantly on their toes. It’s occasions like these that remind my colleagues of their more obscure job requirements¹:

The examiner is looking at colleague A’s test.

Examiner: A you’re part of an intervention team, right?
A: Um… no?
B: Yeah… he’s part of SWAT all right.
Examiner: No… I mean, some of you have extra tasks, in case of danger.
B: Oh yeah, I know. I’m the one who busts the power source.
C: And I’m the one who chucks the monitors out the window.

It’s times like these that make me glad I’m a junior developer. I’m not sure I could easily lift that many monitors. Granted, our windows are low…

What are your tasks in case of fire?

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¹ working as a computer programmer, makes fires especially dangerous: lots of electric equipment around.

… well “master” is pushing it a bit, but makes for a flashy title. I was going to post about my creepy stalker(s). Alas, none showed up. Couple that with the fact that a certain Snark member decided not to sue herself for libel(nu LULZ) this is what you get: way too much free time and boredom.

[edit] Rewritten to make it clearer… hopefully [/edit]

There are some things I instantly take a dislike to: Java¹, for example. As with all instant dislikes, no good reason was to be found. I was annoyed at having to use Notepad to edit code files, which meant no color coding and no automatic indentations. Add to that using command prompt to debug. What do you get? One great mess and an extremely pissed of Vera.

Javascript and I, started out on friendly terms. My first encounter with it was during my n00b days. I decided that my invaluable (Dreamweaver-generated) coding must be worth a fortune, and thus warranted the disabling of right clicking. Sure, there was the little matter of yours truly being highly annoyed when it happened to her, but who counted that?

(read more…)

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.