More web order form fail

[unixronin]

You’re ordering auto parts online.  The order form requires a mandatory phone number.  It allows ten digits for the phone number.

You enter your phone number with area code:  xxxxxxxxxx

The scripting on the form automatically reformats the phone number to make it “pretty”, like this:  (xxx) xxx-xxxx

And then it all goes pear-shaped, because NEXT the field length limiting script kicks in and truncates that to ten characters:  (xxx) xxx-

So, you can’t submit your order form without a valid phone number.

And you can’t submit your order form with a valid phone number, because by the time you hit submit, the form has automatically invalidated it.

FAIL.

Comments

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

The best part is how NEITHER of these scripts is actually doing anything useful.

Just like the damn "ENTER YOUR CREDIT CARD WITH SPACES NO WAIT DASHES NO NO SPACES AAAGH!" forms. Parse it. With spaces, dashes, whatever, it's all unambiguous. Even a moron coder could write the parser that ignores them.

Oh, wait. Maybe not. (http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000781.html)

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

I don't call myself a programmer and don't have a CS degree, and yet I can write a simple program like the one referenced in the article. Have been able to for 25+ years, in fact. This is hard? There are people who call themselves programmers who can't write a simple "for" loop and an if/then/elsif/else construct in the language of their choice?

Man.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Scary, innit?

[luxobscura.livejournal.com]

From a purely end-user perspective, I've been convinced that the limbo bar for coding is has been set so low progressively that it is now six feet under the sand.

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

My Ph.D. advisor once remarked that the script kiddies weren't attacking us so much as they were working for us -- that the majority of web developers and the low-ranking programmer schmucks who were doing most of the dirty work were at the technological skill level of script kiddies.

I am still disturbed today when I remember that conversation, and it was four and a half years ago.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Exactly. "It's not broken. You don't need to fix it."


The article you cite is one that actually makes me feel pretty bitter. "199 out of 200 applicants can't solve simple programming problems." I've contributed code to half a dozen open-source programming projects, I have code in two device drivers in the mainline Linux kernel including the aha154x SCSI driver, I've written multiple entire applications single-handed, I've built entire IT infrastructures from scratch, I've done things "experts in the field" told me couldn't be done¹, I know half a dozen different operating systems, but I can't get a fucking job.



[1] Example: I wanted to have a way to whitelist "problem" addresses in Sendmail and pass them through all subsequent address filtering unchallenged. Since the filters I was using were based on how-to code from Claus Aßmann, I asked him the correct way to do it. He told me "You can't do that, it isn't possible in Sendmail." I had it working the day after he told me it couldn't be done.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Then definitely don't read this one: Is Open Source Experience Overrated? (http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001255.html)

Well, read it. See if you can figure out a plan of attack from it.