Do you read thedailywtf? If you enjoy programming you should check it out. Sometimes the stories leaving you wondering whether to laugh or cry! Take this one for instance — “…utilizing some Excel Interoperability” — actually described the architecture of the system: a horrid amalgamation of Excel spreadsheets interacting with C# interacting with other spreadsheets…”
It reminded me in a tangential kind of way of an incident in my third full-time job after University. I’d been working at this company for around 3 months and one morning, one of the analysts dropped by and said “…come and look at this”. He opened a large storage cupboard and pointed to a huge pile of that green lined computer paper (you know, the type with the sprocket holes down the sides!) . A quick look showed that it was line after line of a large array initialisation setting each value to zero! The programmer responsible had obviously not quite got up to the point in the training course where loops were introduced!