Divine By Zero • Hacker News Board

Re: Divine By Zero

#11

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jun 07, 2011, 4:38 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Divine By Zero

#12

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jun 07, 2011, 4:51 PM UTC

wccrawford wrote: post #5

aditya42 wrote: post #4

Don't mean to be a buzzkill here, but I don't think anyone with an ounce of a brain will find this funny, which I believe was the original intent.

Daily WTF is all about cringe-worthy programming stories. If you find them funny, so be it... But they're almost all cringe-worthy.

[deleted]

Re: Divine By Zero

#13

Post by VilleSalonen » Tue, Jun 07, 2011, 4:52 PM UTC

I love the flowchart. "Ah, now it all makes sense!" I even printed it on the wall at my work right next to Ballmer Peak strip.

Re: Divine By Zero

#14

Post by StavrosK » Tue, Jun 07, 2011, 5:19 PM UTC

Can someone explain why he does two more if checks after he's set the denominator to "php"?

Re: Divine By Zero

#15

Post by zitterbewegung » Tue, Jun 07, 2011, 5:22 PM UTC

Revisor wrote: post #6

Is there an opposite website to The Daily WTF - a collection of short, elegant and clever code?

There is a book called Beautiful Code by O'Rielly http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596510046

Re: Divine By Zero

#16

Post by softbuilder » Tue, Jun 07, 2011, 5:23 PM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #14

Can someone explain why he does two more if checks after he's set the denominator to "php"?

He's an idiot.

Re: Divine By Zero

#17

Post by p4bl0 » Tue, Jun 07, 2011, 5:23 PM UTC

Don't you think this is made up? I can't believe someone actually wrote that.

Re: Divine By Zero

#18

Post by ary » Tue, Jun 07, 2011, 5:25 PM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #14

Can someone explain why he does two more if checks after he's set the denominator to "php"?

Can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. :)

Aside from the whole function being asinine the only way to know "why" would be to ask him. The answer would probably also qualify as asinine.

Re: Divine By Zero

#19

Post by ary » Tue, Jun 07, 2011, 5:31 PM UTC

Lets say for a moment that this isn't made up. The questions that struck me immediately are as follows:

1. What was the motivation for creating this function? Was it (hopefully) to show off how "smart" he was? Was the company he worked for doing any kind of calculations related to (dear god no) financial or medical data that he thought he could improve?

2. How does anyone in this world escape grade school without knowing that one cannot divide by zero?

3. Someone thought dividing by zero should be a recoverable error?

Re: Divine By Zero

#20

Post by kgermino » Tue, Jun 07, 2011, 6:13 PM UTC

As much as I love TDWTF I have to say I'm disappointed to see a submission from there get 46 upvotes on the front page. Great story though