Frequent contributor Russell F stumbled across this block, which illustrates an impressive ability to make a wide variety of bad choices. It is written in C#, but one has the sense that the developer didn't really understand C#. Or, honestly, programming.

if (row["Appointment_Num"].ToString() == row["Appointment_Num"].ToString())
{
    bool b1 = String.IsNullOrEmpty(results.messages[0].error_text);
    if (b1 == true)
    {
        row["Message_Id"] = ($"{results.messages[0].message_id}");
        row["message_count"] = ($"{results.message_count[0] }");
        row["message_cost"] = ($"{results.messages[0].message_price }");
        row["error_text"] = ($"{results.messages[0].error_text }");
        row["network"] = ($"{results.messages[0].network }");
        row["to"] = ($"{results.messages[0].to }");
        row["status"] = ($"{results.messages[0].status }");
        row["communicationtype_num"] = ($"1");
        row["Sent_Date"] = (String.Format("{0:yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss}", DateTime.Now));
        row["Sent_Message"] = row["Sent_Message"].ToString();
    }

    if (b1 == false)
    {
        row["Message_Id"] = "0000000000000000";
        row["message_count"] = ($"{results.message_count[0] }");
        row["message_cost"] = ($"{results.messages[0].message_price }");
        row["error_text"] = ($"{results.messages[0].error_text }");
        row["network"] = ($"{results.messages[0].network }");
        row["to"] = ($"{results.messages[0].to }");
        row["status"] = ($"{results.messages[0].status }");
        row["communicationtype_num"] = ($"1");
        row["Sent_Date"] = (String.Format("{0:yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss}", DateTime.Now));
        row["Sent_Message"] = row["Sent_Message"].ToString();
    }
}

Like the tides, the popularity of low-code development environments comes in ebbs and flows. With each cycle, the landscape changes, old tools going away and new tools washing up on shore. One one hand, democratizing access to technology is good, on the other, these tools inevitably fail to actually do that. Instead, we get mission critical developed by people who don't understand how to develop, and are thus fragile, and released on platforms that are almost certainly going to be on legacy support in the next cycle.

I don't want to imply that low-code tools are automatically bad, or insult non-developers who want to give developing in a low-code environment a shot, though. Especially when professional developers can't really do any better.

When someone mentioned to Abraham, "Our product has an auto-sync feature that fires every hour," Abraham wasn't surprised. He was new to the team, didn't know the code well, but an auto-sync back to the server sounded reasonable.

The approach, however, left something to be desired.

Using built-in methods is good and normal, but it's certainly boring. When someone, for example, has a list of tags in an array, and calls string.Join(" ", tags), I don't really learn anything about the programmer as a person. There's no relationship or connection, no deeper understanding of them.

Which, let's be honest, is a good thing when it comes to delivering good software. But watching people reinvent built in methods is a fun way to see how their brain works. Fun for me, because I don't work with them, probably less fun for Mike, who inherited this C# code.

Starting in the late 2000s, smartphones and tablets took off, and for a lot of people, they constituted a full replacement for a computer. By the time the iPad and Microsoft Surface took off, every pointy-haired-boss wanted to bring a tablet into their meetings, and do as much work as possible on that tablet.

Well, nearly every PHB. Lutz worked for a company where management was absolutely convinced that tablets, smartphones, and frankly, anything smaller than the cheapest Dell laptop with the chunkiest plastic case was nothing more than a toy. It was part of the entire management culture, led by the CEO, Barry. When one of Lutz's co-workers was careless enough to mention in passing an article they'd read on mobile-first development, Barry scowled and said "We are a professional software company that develops professional business software."

Duncan B was contracting with a company, and the contract had, up to this point, gone extremely well. The last task Duncan needed to spec out was incorporating employee leave/absences into the monthly timesheets.

"Hey, can I get some test data?" he asked the payroll system administrators.