OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/19266/WTFs_m Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2013, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Sun, 19 May 2013 16:19:06 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com YIKES! http://www.osnews.com/thread?299314 http://www.osnews.com/thread?299314 ...flashbacks of writing OSNews version 3's HTML!! Mon, 04 Feb 2008 21:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Adam S) Comments RE: YIKES! http://www.osnews.com/thread?299317 http://www.osnews.com/thread?299317 Oh, don't talk too much about v2 or v3. They worked PERFECTLY on every browser. This is what code is supposed to do: WORK. Mon, 04 Feb 2008 22:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Eugenia) Comments RE[2]: YIKES! http://www.osnews.com/thread?299319 http://www.osnews.com/thread?299319 This is not about the end result, it's about the coding itself.

And either way, it's a JOKE Eugenia. Just laugh and don't put so much effort into it. Mon, 04 Feb 2008 22:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Adam S) Comments RE[2]: YIKES! http://www.osnews.com/thread?299340 http://www.osnews.com/thread?299340 Ha! "working code" isn't necessarily "good code"... Tue, 05 Feb 2008 01:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (umccullough) Comments RE[3]: YIKES! http://www.osnews.com/thread?299342 http://www.osnews.com/thread?299342 Well, what Adam said is not exactly in line with what the comic portrays. HTML is not a language, so it's not about being "good", it's about actually being "compatible". Tue, 05 Feb 2008 01:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Eugenia) Comments microsoft http://www.osnews.com/thread?299345 http://www.osnews.com/thread?299345 okay fix later okay fix later ...

:) Tue, 05 Feb 2008 01:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Mellin) Comments RE[2]: YIKES! http://www.osnews.com/thread?299364 http://www.osnews.com/thread?299364
This is what code is supposed to do: WORK.


By the same measurement Trabant was a good car since it could transport people between point A and B. It didn't do it safely or well but it did it. Not saying OSnews v2 and v3 was like Trabant (I liked both v2 and v3), only that "it works" isn't a good measurement of quality. Tue, 05 Feb 2008 03:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Soulbender) Comments RE[3]: YIKES! http://www.osnews.com/thread?299366 http://www.osnews.com/thread?299366 Watched a leg of The Amazing Race with these cars. If I remember right 6 teams, 6 cars.

One car blew out it's engine.
One car transmission jammed.
One car had a flaky transmission and problems with the turn signals.

This is just in one single leg of the race and it had a 50% failure rate. That is one piece of junk of a car. Tue, 05 Feb 2008 03:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Earl Colby pottinger) Comments Best comic for now! http://www.osnews.com/thread?299403 http://www.osnews.com/thread?299403 I find this to be your funiest comic for now!
Good work. ;)

My predictions that the comics will get better are proving to be true! Hah, I am all-knowing! Tue, 05 Feb 2008 09:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (TLZ_) Comments RE: Best comic for now! http://www.osnews.com/thread?299435 http://www.osnews.com/thread?299435 Indeed, this one is nice. I liked "Janitor" too, but that because I'm a BeOS user ;)

Keep it up Thom. Tue, 05 Feb 2008 14:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (BiPolar) Comments Reactions in the office: http://www.osnews.com/thread?299441 http://www.osnews.com/thread?299441 Some reactions to this one in our offices:

Q&A Team's office: generalized "HAHAHA!!!, I want too printed copies!"

Development Team office: generalized "Mmm..."


I'd say this says a lot about us :-) Tue, 05 Feb 2008 14:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (BiPolar) Comments RE[2]: YIKES! http://www.osnews.com/thread?299455 http://www.osnews.com/thread?299455 Everybody likes jokes as long as they are not the target ;)
Chill...

And HTML is a language... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markup_languageEdited 2008-02-05 16:11 UTC Tue, 05 Feb 2008 16:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (wooptoo) Comments Hillarious but very true http://www.osnews.com/thread?299479 http://www.osnews.com/thread?299479 This should get the comic of the year award. Very well put. Awesome. Tue, 05 Feb 2008 20:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (CrazyDude1) Comments RE[4]: YIKES! http://www.osnews.com/thread?299516 http://www.osnews.com/thread?299516
Well, what Adam said is not exactly in line with what the comic portrays. HTML is not a language, so it's not about being "good", it's about actually being "compatible".


Hmmm. I wonder what the 'L' in HTML stands for then. Tue, 05 Feb 2008 23:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Chicken Blood) Comments RE[5]: YIKES! http://www.osnews.com/thread?299521 http://www.osnews.com/thread?299521 Well, you're both at least partially wrong in what you imply: HTML stands for "Hyper Text Markup Language" and that's exactly what it does: it describes how things should look, but... it has zero program logic that can be expressed in and of itself; therefore, you can't write anything algorithmic in any way, shape or form, and can't do serious work with it where computation is required, at least not without going into a deep WTFery state of abusing an HTML-capable browser.

HTML simply isn't a programming language, and it is not remotely Turing-complete. Wed, 06 Feb 2008 00:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (JonathanBThompson) Comments Funny http://www.osnews.com/thread?299528 http://www.osnews.com/thread?299528 This is the first cartoon here that has really made me laugh.

Good work! Wed, 06 Feb 2008 00:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Chicken Blood) Comments RE[6]: YIKES! http://www.osnews.com/thread?299529 http://www.osnews.com/thread?299529 I certainly don't believe that the HTML exposed by OSNews is entirely static either.

Clearly some programming had to go into the backend server in order to GENERATE the HTML. Perhaps it was even intelligent enough to figure out what browser was requesting it - and thus altered the HTML on-the-fly.

So, while HTML maybe is not "programming language" in itself, it certainly requires programming to generate HTML of the complexity displayed here on OSNews.

I'll even leave out the notion that client-side HTML these days is largely encumbered with javascript and/or other dynamic HTML technologies... Wed, 06 Feb 2008 00:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (umccullough) Comments RE[6]: YIKES! http://www.osnews.com/thread?299530 http://www.osnews.com/thread?299530 Regardless it is still a language, a declarative one.

No-one made conditions about it having to be Turing-complete. Wed, 06 Feb 2008 00:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Chicken Blood) Comments RE[2]: YIKES! http://www.osnews.com/thread?299574 http://www.osnews.com/thread?299574
Oh, don't talk too much about v2 or v3. They worked PERFECTLY on every browser. This is what code is supposed to do: WORK.

Exactly, I like v3 a lot better than v4.x. Wed, 06 Feb 2008 04:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (mezz) Comments He said "shit" http://www.osnews.com/thread?299666 http://www.osnews.com/thread?299666 Wed, 06 Feb 2008 20:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (zombie process) Comments RE[4]: YIKES! http://www.osnews.com/thread?300038 http://www.osnews.com/thread?300038
HTML is not a language, so it's not about being "good", it's about actually being "compatible".


As it has been pointd out before, the L in HTML stands for Language. So it is one. But HTML is not a programming language. HTML's quality is about compatibility and standard complicance.

In Germany, there are "wannabe professionals" who insist on that they're "programming Internet Sites in HTML" (go count the errors in this statement). :-) Fri, 08 Feb 2008 17:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Doc Pain) Comments RE[3]: YIKES! http://www.osnews.com/thread?300039 http://www.osnews.com/thread?300039
By the same measurement Trabant was a good car since it could transport people between point A and B. It didn't do it safely or well but it did it.


Hey, don't complain about the Trabant, you could repair it with rubber tape and glue! :-) The Traband was a very service friendly vehicle, not comparable with today's electronically controlled blackboxes. In regards of comfort or security, the Traband could not impress, but it had other strengths. In a country that was low on ressources (GDR), the Trabant was a way to bring "luxury" to the masses. You cannot compare with today where an own car is nothing special, expensive or time consuming (you had to wait several years for your Trabant, as well as for a phone). The same way the GDR built cars, it built computers. Reliable and robust, but heavy and expensive.

It's the same way we talk about tools: There is not "the" tool for everything. You have to decide well which tool is the best one for you to accomplish a certain task.

The same is true for cars. And for (programming) languages.

Having said this, I'm gonna take a ride in a Barkas B1000 rescue vehicle this weekend. :-)

Not saying OSnews v2 and v3 was like Trabant (I liked both v2 and v3), only that "it works" isn't a good measurement of quality.


This is true. Quality is not all about working, it's about style and paradigmata, too. Is the code readable? Does it run reliable in every setting it is intended to? It is documented well and understandable? Does it check for errors, how does it handle them? In most cases, "just works" code is of low quality in these regards.

The "just works" solutions are usually the ones that prevail, and it's obvious: Why would you want to change (improve) something that's already doing what it is expected to do?

I liked v3 very much, but v4 now (!) works for me, too. Fri, 08 Feb 2008 17:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Doc Pain) Comments ROTFL http://www.osnews.com/thread?300229 http://www.osnews.com/thread?300229 Hey Thom, this one is truly brilliant ;) Just seeing it after a short break from coding, and just on my way back 'in' again, this made me smile a whole lot ;)

Now it is back to the Print Kit of Haiku again..... ;) Sat, 09 Feb 2008 22:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Ithamar) Comments RE: ROTFL http://www.osnews.com/thread?300235 http://www.osnews.com/thread?300235 /me pets Ithamar ;) .

Thanks for the compliment - I can say honestly that I won't be able to make 'hits' like this one every time - but I'll try. Sat, 09 Feb 2008 23:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom_Holwerda) Comments Funny http://www.osnews.com/thread?300238 http://www.osnews.com/thread?300238 This one made me laugh out loud. Good work! Sat, 09 Feb 2008 23:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Gorgak) Comments