Not so Source Control...
Submitted by phrax on Wed, 2004-09-29 14:52. Bad Architecture
I wanted to share this. The previous developers didn't use any source control, they simply did the same thing by renaming the old files and added new ones. The file names have been changed to protect the guilty: 
This WTF is completely a human problem. Given a bad situation people (especially bad programmers) will find the ways to make it worse. The problem gets worse when dumb developers start using those old libraries! Now your messy directories have turned into software requirements! This may sound retarded but this has happened, and will happen!
When Newbies Attack!
Submitted by phrax on Sun, 2004-09-26 14:50. DB HooplaI think inexperienced web programmers all make common DB WTFs when starting out. Jim Grill sent in a prime example from a project that he inherited. I'm sure we've all seen similar code before and we've all said, "wtf?!", if not "ytf?!"
<?php
$query = 'SELECT * FROM sometable';
$result = mysql_query($query,$connection);
$count = mysql_num_rows($result);
?>
It should be obvious what's wrong in the example. To count the number of rows all data is needlessly requested and the rows counted in PHP. As the table grows these three lines will get slower and slower. Most people take data transfer from the DB server for granted. However we always should be as efficient as possible, since little things can quickly multiply into big problems.
The fix is relatively simple:
<?php
$query = 'SELECT COUNT(*) FROM sometable';
$result = mysql_query($query,$connection);
list($count) = mysql_fetch_array($result);
?>
Using count(*) will return just the number of rows. Much more efficient.
