6 ms·

former js coworker: "i cant populate that dropdown with the results of an ajax request because everything is 'async' in javascript"

ctvo 10y ago
Current co-worker, a contractor, on a remote project wrote 1000+ lines of JS to load a JSON file in Node (he didn't realize he could just require it).
- syntheticnature 10y ago
  While playing with Node as someone new to JS at the time, I wrote some code to load a JSON file due to not knowing I could require it... and it was vastly less than 1000+ lines. On a similar basis, I once worked on a codebase where someone had implemented strftime, poorly, a few different ways, and also come up with several replacements for strptime, all of which had subtle bugs and none of which worked the same.
  - kazinator 10y ago
    Though strftime is in ISO C, so there is little excuse, strptime is a POSIX function, so there is at least the possibility of a credible portability argument there. (Though this probably doesn't stretch far enough to justify the lack of an #ifdef to select the system's strptime if it is provided.)
    - syntheticnature 10y ago
      In this particular case the application was already quite POSIX-dependent in other ways, but it's a good point to make -- I did hesitate before deciding on it for that reason, now that you remind me. To add additional details, for those who might draw amusement and/or wisdom: In all cases the input/output date/time strings had the same format. Further, a number of the bugs were due to half-implemented reinventions of atoi being involved -- and atoi was definitely available, as one of the reinventions used it! Finally, in at least one case there was a Y2100 problem.
      - MaulingMonkey 10y ago
        To be fair, I'd reroll atoi too - but only once, with "sufficient" unit tests (e.g. round trip unit tests for INT_MIN..INT_MAX), and only because atoi has no proper error checking nor wchar_t* variants.
        kazinator 10y ago
        Indeed; atoi in fact invokes undefined behavior in out of range situations; you can only safely use it when the input has been lexically analyzed to be a valid integer of only so many digits as not to overflow. I'd tend to make this re-rolled atoi a wrapper around strtol/wcstol.
        MaulingMonkey 10y ago
        > atoi in fact invokes undefined behavior in out of range situations Ouch! TIL. You'd think by now I wouldn't be surprised by such things, and yet, somehow I was...
  - jeffdavis 10y ago
    Both of your examples describe people who can code. Given only the information you provided, I would hesitate to mock them, for fear they might make something really cool.
- Mystrl 10y ago
  Huh neat I actually didn't know that.
- meowface 10y ago
  There must be something missing to that story. Even the most asinine way I can imagine doing that would be 50 lines max. Did he try to write a complete JSON parser from scratch?
- twblalock 10y ago
  On the other hand, if it worked, he could write a JSON parser, which most programmers cannot do.
- geon 10y ago
  I could forgive anyone for not knowing about requiring json files in node. It is kind of arcane. But 1000 lines? var x = JSON.parse(fs.readFileSync('filename.json'));

ctvo 10y ago

Current co-worker, a contractor, on a remote project wrote 1000+ lines of JS to load a JSON file in Node (he didn't realize he could just require it).

syntheticnature 10y ago
While playing with Node as someone new to JS at the time, I wrote some code to load a JSON file due to not knowing I could require it... and it was vastly less than 1000+ lines. On a similar basis, I once worked on a codebase where someone had implemented strftime, poorly, a few different ways, and also come up with several replacements for strptime, all of which had subtle bugs and none of which worked the same.
- kazinator 10y ago
  Though strftime is in ISO C, so there is little excuse, strptime is a POSIX function, so there is at least the possibility of a credible portability argument there. (Though this probably doesn't stretch far enough to justify the lack of an #ifdef to select the system's strptime if it is provided.)
  - syntheticnature 10y ago
    In this particular case the application was already quite POSIX-dependent in other ways, but it's a good point to make -- I did hesitate before deciding on it for that reason, now that you remind me. To add additional details, for those who might draw amusement and/or wisdom: In all cases the input/output date/time strings had the same format. Further, a number of the bugs were due to half-implemented reinventions of atoi being involved -- and atoi was definitely available, as one of the reinventions used it! Finally, in at least one case there was a Y2100 problem.
    - MaulingMonkey 10y ago
      To be fair, I'd reroll atoi too - but only once, with "sufficient" unit tests (e.g. round trip unit tests for INT_MIN..INT_MAX), and only because atoi has no proper error checking nor wchar_t* variants.
      - kazinator 10y ago
        Indeed; atoi in fact invokes undefined behavior in out of range situations; you can only safely use it when the input has been lexically analyzed to be a valid integer of only so many digits as not to overflow. I'd tend to make this re-rolled atoi a wrapper around strtol/wcstol.
        MaulingMonkey 10y ago
        > atoi in fact invokes undefined behavior in out of range situations Ouch! TIL. You'd think by now I wouldn't be surprised by such things, and yet, somehow I was...
- jeffdavis 10y ago
  Both of your examples describe people who can code. Given only the information you provided, I would hesitate to mock them, for fear they might make something really cool.
Mystrl 10y ago
Huh neat I actually didn't know that.
meowface 10y ago
There must be something missing to that story. Even the most asinine way I can imagine doing that would be 50 lines max. Did he try to write a complete JSON parser from scratch?
twblalock 10y ago
On the other hand, if it worked, he could write a JSON parser, which most programmers cannot do.
geon 10y ago
I could forgive anyone for not knowing about requiring json files in node. It is kind of arcane. But 1000 lines? var x = JSON.parse(fs.readFileSync('filename.json'));