Maybe you guys can laugh at this... I still cannot.

Richard C Bishop

And do you forgive yourself?

Joe Woodbury

Reminds me of when I ran across some crappy image processing code. There was a long comment block with dates above it saying "this code sucks, it needs to be rewritten." I called the last person on that list, who still worked for the company, and she just laughed and agreed that the comment was an understatement. I added my own comment and moved on (it would have taken several weeks to rewrite the code since the effects of changing that relatively small section of code would have rippled far.) (Then there's the time I started rewriting a confusing class of mine only to hit a blocking problem three days in and only then remembering I'd been there before. I rolled back my changes and put in a comment warning me to stop trying to rewrite the class.)

SoMad

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: That is just too funny :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: Soren Madsen

"When you don't know what you're doing it's best to do it quickly" - Jase #DuckDynasty

sir_download_alot

At least you were remembered by the comment :-)

Herbie Mountjoy

It wasn't me. Signed The Murderer.

I may not last forever but the mess I leave behind certainly will.

glennPattonWork3

I have done the same thing (many times...) my worst was sending out an exe to a client (that was built on a test version I wrote) that displayed a message box with an red X on it and the message "Destroy All Humans"... phone call later in the day to my line "Hi Glenn, software works great that new fix you came up with, great. Get rid of the message box and it can go", "What message box..." and on! :-O

Gary Wheeler

Excellent riposte, as it were.

Software Zen: delete this;

grralph1

Of course it is funny as it has come to bite you back. Sometimes an ugly hack is necessary. Given time restraints etc. We may laugh when an ugly hack is accomplished and it appears to work, but we never laugh when we have to revisit and fix or tidy it.... but then we laugh again when it is fixed. We all do it. If some poor other coder got the job you wouldn't have even known about it. What if someone posted a rant about it on CP and you realised that it was your comment in your code. I wouldn't laugh then either but at least the comment was honest and apologetic and I would have understood, but I wouldn't laugh. I tell a lie, I would laugh. Just a quick little laugh and then I would be indignant and self righteous about it.

"Rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read." Frank Zappa 1980

Dan Neely

Sometimes I laugh to hold away the tears.

Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason? Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful? --Zachris Topelius Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies. -- Sarah Hoyt

Dan Neely

Yup. I've got hate lists for all my long running projects with bits of ugly/confusing/unmodifiable/badly designed code that needs rewritten at some point. Occasionally I even have a week to scratch an item off the list.

Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason? Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful? --Zachris Topelius Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies. -- Sarah Hoyt

Alexander DiMauro

This is why you should change jobs every few years...to avoid having to fix any of your old code! :-D Have a :beer: and laugh it off! :laugh:

I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my telephone; my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out how to use my telephone - Bjarne Stroustrup The world is going to laugh at you anyway, might as well crack the 1st joke! My code has no bugs, it runs exactly as it was written.

Sharon Freas

Judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment. :) You did the best you could at the time. Now you have better ideas. It's a sign of growth. :-D

etkid84

from an apparently honest guy :thumbsup:

David

mgoad99

Actually, an honest gal. Well, maybe or maybe not honest... but definetly a gal. :)

etkid84

oops, my bad :doh:

David

RafagaX

Well, the future wasn't as far you thought, wasn't it? :laugh: ;P

CEO at: - Rafaga Systems - Para Facturas - Modern Components for the moment...

bkebamc

This is the voice of GOD speaking: Have you grep'd your code for "ugly hack"?

rjmoses

I once took over maintenance of a 40,000 line, assembly language program which had only one comment: "Be prepared with bottle in hand when working on this program." Bottle didn't help, but I didn't care either.

BrainiacV

Joe Woodbury wrote:

(Then there's the time I started rewriting a confusing class of mine only to hit a blocking problem three days in and only then remembering I'd been there before. I rolled back my changes and put in a comment warning me to stop trying to rewrite the class.)

Reminds me of the time I wrote this routine to search some structure. As I got into it, I realized the intuitive manner I was writing it was going to lead to a dead end and I rewrote it in a counter-intuitive manner that worked. I was in a time crunch and another programmer offered to help and so I said I needed a copy of the routine, but addressing another structure, so could he just make the reference changes (Yes, I should have written it in a more flexible form, but that would have taken longer and I believe at the time I thought I only needed it once). At end of day he gave me the code and then split, I looked at the source and saw that he had not done what I had asked, but had tried to write it in the intuitive manner that I knew looked good, but was not going to work. (sigh) So I pulled an all-nighter to re-do it correctly since I was on a plane flight the next day to install it.

Psychosis at 10 Film at 11 Those who do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it. Those who do not remember the past, cannot build upon it.

KP Lee

BrainiacV wrote:

he had not done what I had asked, but had tried to write it in the intuitive manner that I knew looked good, but was not going to work.

I blame this on SDETS, if they didn't exist, the programmer would have to test his own code. Hopefully without the blind spot that bypasses the path that will fail. (I at times am an SDET and just have to shake my head at some of the garbage that gets sent for testing. So this is my fault for agreeing to this work.) Reminds me of a bug where I wrote something like "It makes absolutely no sense to allow this field to be nullable, but since it is, fix your code to fail gracefully when it is null." Ah, the joys of writing new code to integrate with legacy code.