Boneheaded Quicken UI Error #768 May 4, 2006
Posted by Owen in : Programming, Weird , 5comments
Ok, there’s a lot of things I find annoying in Quicken, but I think this is easily the funniest. Check out this screenshot of the “Create Renaming Rule” window. It looks normal, right? Well take a close look at the “Contains” dropdown. Notice how the two Contains menus look slightly different? What Quicken does is show you an IMAGE (i.e. a JPEG) of the menu and when you click on it the software substitutes in the real Windows dropdown menu. It’s flabergasting–did Intuit have their intern design the menu? How could anyone possibly think this is the correct way to design an application? I think this is a perfect candidate for the Daily WTF.
Funny Programming Manual February 26, 2004
Posted by Owen in : Programming , add a commentHaha, this is the funniest programming language tutorial I have ever seen. Even if you have no interest in learning Ruby (like… um… me) it’s worth taking a look at. Too bad more books aren’t like it. And the book is even free. People should send him $5 just for the effort. 
We Are Morons: a quick look at the Win2k source February 19, 2004
Posted by Owen in : Programming , add a commentHere are some funny comments from the Windows 2000 source code. I haven’t viewed it, of course, but they’re from this Kuro5hin Story. First the embarrassing:
- God, I hate this hack …
- The specific idiot in this case is Office95, which likes to free a random pointer when you start Word95 from a desktop shortcut.
- Add the hack-o-ramma to fix formats.
- HACK OF DEATH
- The magnitude of this hack compares favorably with that of the national debt.
- CallProc32W is insane. It’s a variadic function that uses the pascal calling convention. (It probably makes more sense when you’re stoned.)
Now, how bad is it?
The code is generally excellent. Modules are small, and procedures generally fit on a single screen. The commenting is very detailed about intentions, but doesn’t fall into “add one to i” redundancy.
So despite funny comments, the code isn’t horrible. I didn’t expect it to be horrible, though. You can’t get something as complicated as an operating system to run at all well with awful code.
In short, there is nothing really surprising in this leak. Microsoft does not steal open-source code. Their older code is flaky, their modern code excellent. Their programmers are skilled and enthusiastic. Problems are generally due to a trade-off of current quality against vast hardware, software and backward compatibility.
I’d imagine all but the worst companies can generate decent the code–it seems to me problems occur not in writing code or creating functions that do what they claim, but in problems with the design. In my experience, once you get an idea down (in requirement and design documents) it’s easy to convert the document to code and have each procedure do what it is supposed to do. The problem is that an idea doesn’t necessarily convert to reality. I’ve gone wrong there and I’m sure Microsoft has too. The lesson is to do good prep work–something I’ve certainly learned the hard way in my college career.