From a comment thread at The Register. Cut-n-pasted below because no permalinks.

Personal favourite.

By TeeCee
Posted Tuesday 29th January 2008 09:45 GMT

From a previous existance and left for our entertainment by a programmer who had long since left the company concerned.

Green-screen app with what can only be described as a shed-load of input capable fields on the particular screen in question. All are validated against reference data and each other and any in error are highlighted and some nice scrolly messages appear at the bottom of the screen telling you about all the errors.

One day a new user calls saying that her screen is locked out, we ask what she was using and swear (offline) when she tells us. The particular screen in question had a few sensitive things open for update. So, fact-finding time:

"What's the screen number?"

"It hasn't got one."

"No, look in the top left corner of the screen, there's a screen number."

"No there isn't."

Hmmmm, strange.

"What does it say on the screen?"

".......I'd rather not say."

Hmmmmm, very strange. A quick look at the user's job reveals a screen display member that we don't immediately recognise. Do we a) pull the source to see what it looks like or b) exit, en masse, to the user's desk to see what's up? b) wins out and off we go.

Turn out that the new user has managed to get every single field invalid in some way or another and a long-unused error routine has creaked into life. There, on the screen, with all the keys disabled, resplendant in HUGE block letters lovingly constructed out of individual spaces displayed inverse, highlighted and blinking is one word:

BOLLOCKS!

Not just the message.

By TeeCee
Posted Tuesday 29th January 2008 15:57 GMT

I sent a link to this lot to a friend. He responded with something so funny that I just had to share.

Many moons ago he did some customisation on a system for some users. Not having access to the code, this consisted of working out the function from the results and putting in some replacement modules in. To be 100% sure, he dropped in a little routine to check all the data afterwards and ensure everything was in order. It produced a couple of error messages thus:

"If you are seeing this message, the system is SERIOUSLY fucked. Call <xxxxxxxx> now....."
...and the usual "Press enter to continue" or somesuch.

Pressing enter gets you:

"You haven't called <xxxxxxxx> have you???
GO AND DO IT NOW!!!!"

One night, some time later, he was awoken by a user whose first question, asked in all seriousness was:

"How the hell have you managed to interface this software to our telephone system?"

Priceless!

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 17:19:10 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 459 words, total size 4 kb.