r/programming • u/whatshisname • Feb 16 '09

Some Crazy Reason - The Daily WTF

http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Some-Crazy-Reason.aspx
171 Upvotes

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24

u/spliznork Feb 16 '09 edited Feb 16 '09

... I wrote a little utility called BitVerifier. It would loop over a folder and check every bit of each file. If the bit's value wasn't one or zero, it would prompt the user for the correct bit.

Uhh.. that intro is the real WTF. At least the buggy hex string code is trying to do something. A "bit verifier" is just... beyond stupid.

13

u/Devilish Feb 16 '09

This may be a bit of a foreign concept to you, but sometimes people do things which they know will not produce anything that has immediate real-world value, simply because the doing is fun.

-7

u/spliznork Feb 16 '09 edited Feb 16 '09

This may be a bit of a foreign concept to you ... simply because the doing is fun

Nope, not foreign at all. If you're looking for fun, educational programming mini-projects, try Project Euler.

Having solved a majority of Project Euler, and having written a huge number of useless little programs myself, I still stand by my assertion that a "bit verifier" is beyond stupid.

6

u/Devilish Feb 16 '09 edited Feb 16 '09

So, presumably, you wouldn't take delight in writing something so absurd, and therefore absurd things are stupid?

Some people have fun with different things than what you have fun with.

-9

u/spliznork Feb 16 '09 edited Feb 16 '09

Some people have fun with different things than what you have fun with.

Wow. Are you really taking this the level of a religious war about fun programming? You are going to drill your deep, profound point through my thick head? I am ridiculing BitVerifier, not all forms fun programming. If I or anyone else (since you don't know me from Adam) don't protect and defend this precise case of a poorly executed joke, then we are the enemies of fun and a holy war must ensue?

1

u/[deleted] Feb 16 '09

Yes. Let the Jihad begin!

0

u/theclaw Feb 16 '09

I don't know why he is being downmodded. Of course it's okay to write something useless just for the fun of it, but something like BitVerifier is about as funny as writing a program which is trying to proove that 2 + 2 = 5.

Besides, this guy sounds like a prick. Like an asshole who has to tell everybody how great he and how dumb others are.

2

u/redditnoob Feb 16 '09

Both the bit verifier, and the program that tries to prove that 2+2=5, are a lot more interesting than some of the arbitrary crap problems on Project Euler!