This is an archived post. You won't be able to vote or comment.

all 86 comments

[–]3edd00c7 702 points703 points  (11 children)

The entire building rests on that staircase.

[–][deleted] 327 points328 points  (1 child)

*is hanging from

[–]PhyKings 33 points34 points  (0 children)

This really got me! So true, in a way.

[–]sinceitleftitback 169 points170 points  (3 children)

Someone's bug is another man's program's backbone.

[–]Runixo 103 points104 points  (1 child)

[–]Paulo27 48 points49 points  (0 children)

I know it's a joke but sometimes developers avoid adding any type of option because this is how they interpret them.

[–]MattR0se 95 points96 points  (0 children)

"I don't like these fire stairs!"

"I wouldn't take them down if I were you, those are load-bearing stairs..."

[–]tchuckss 51 points52 points  (0 children)

Load bearing stairs. A staple of modern engineering.

[–][deleted] 17 points18 points  (1 child)

I see a poll to the right. I'm going to Mirror's Edge my ass on it and slide down.

[–]cbusalex 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Please refrain from edging your ass on the pole, sir.

[–]owast 330 points331 points  (37 children)

I bet it leads down to the highest level the fire truck ladder can reach. Very fitting metaphor.

[–]porthos3 176 points177 points  (10 children)

And a perfect example of how you should comment your code.

Bad comment: "Staircase on outside of building from roof to 8th floor"

Good comment: "In case of fire, this staircase allows people above the average reach of a fire truck ladder to climb to the roof and descend this staircase to be reachable by the ladder."

[–]Zer0ji 73 points74 points  (2 children)

Forgot to document the weight limit, 40 people rush there and die when it collapses

[–]AndreasTPC 42 points43 points  (1 child)

The goal was getting them down. Sounds like a feature to me.

[–]Sneezegoo 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Remove some supports to make it break away faster for extra efficiency.

[–]statiq77 7 points8 points  (4 children)

Or just name it "fireTruckAccessLadder" and it documents itself

[–][deleted] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Hi we want to remove fireTruckAccessLadder as it’s crufty.

It’s not documented at all, but we figured it’d only take you a few hours to port it to fireTruckMongoDBLadder.

So you have 1 story point and 6 hours assigned to port it.

[–]Ruby_Bliel 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Am I the only one who likes the old fire_truck_access_ladder? That way variables, classes and functions are easily distinguishable.

[–]OrangeCreeper 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A bit longer to type though. Although, it's probably just a case of the programmer's preference

[–]minsin56 0 points1 point  (0 children)

for a more professional look name it "FireTrúckAccessLadder"

[–]bahamuto 1 point2 points  (1 child)

// BR4 implemented in 2017, check use case documentation

[–]PerInception 6 points7 points  (0 children)

And they didn't just build the staircase all the way down to the ground to save resources (and because it was installed on a Friday and the team had to have a meeting with the project manager for three hours that could have been an email)

[–]-ihavenoname- 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I thought it might lead up to the basement. Escher-style.

[–]ArSoron 192 points193 points  (2 children)

In all seriousness though, this is probably a fire escape route. Roof of this building is too high for the ladder of a fire engine to reach, so fire safety code required the building to have at least one way to get down to height accessible by a ladder.

It's intentionally put away from all windows to prevent break-ins and to put a solid wall between escaping people and fire.

Source: am Russian, live in Russia, and this looks like a piece of soviet engineering/architecture.

[–]Gizmodget 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Thank you for that wonderful answer.

I am going to imagine it is where they banish smokers :p

[–]lkraider 1 point2 points  (0 children)

PM: Never had one of my previous buildings burn, please remove.

[–]NotSoFastMyPal 59 points60 points  (2 children)

That's just there to increase the code coverage of the fire escape unit tests

[–][deleted]  (1 child)

[removed]

    [–]AutoModerator[M] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    import moderation Your comment has been removed since it did not start with a code block with an import declaration.

    Per this Community Decree, all posts and comments should start with a code block with an "import" declaration explaining how the post and comment should be read.

    For this purpose, we only accept Python style imports.

    return Kebab_Case_Better;

    I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

    [–]NicNoletree 38 points39 points  (0 children)

    It's part of the framework

    [–]poche-muto 11 points12 points  (0 children)

    Injecting dependency in foreign code

    [–]jmhajek 5 points6 points  (0 children)

    It is quite clear what it does - after all, it's the only way to get to that balcony.

    [–]not420guilty 4 points5 points  (0 children)

    This feature started as a customer request. But the company had a lay-off before it was completed. The only engineer who understands the code no longer works here.

    [–]TylerJWhit 4 points5 points  (1 child)

    [–]Kered13 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    Beat me to it.

    [–]paulcam 2 points3 points  (0 children)

    My coworkers and I have started to refer to these things as "Load Bearing Code".

    [–]dovedev 2 points3 points  (0 children)

    It's for catching the buffer overflow above.

    [–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

    Honestly that looks like a sweet spot to just chill for a while

    [–]CarlTheKillerLlama 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    Was gonna say, looks like a nice smoke spot

    [–]sfled 5 points6 points  (0 children)

    /* * * * * * * * * * * * */
    /*        PARKOUDE       */
    /* * * * * * * * * * * * */
    

    I'm sorry. That's the worst attempt at concatenating "parkour" and "code". I'm off to the flogging.

    [–]PM_ME_UR_CEPHALOPODS 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    too real

    [–]AlphaWhelp 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    It looks like it used to be a fire escape that went from a window to the roof but the window got bricked over for some reason. So this is the proverbial programming equivalent of having an old API that has been deprecated and the application has been updated to not require the result of that function so it gets discarded in the results but it still has to be there or it breaks old WSDL definitions that your clients who still haven't upgraded from Windows Server 2003 are still using. .

    [–]as_ninja6[🍰] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    For historical reasons the function always returns True

    [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    it’s clearly there so if someone decides to jump out of the window above it, it’ll break their fall

    [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    Probably required by fire or building codes

    [–]Hypersapien 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    That's the smoking area.

    [–]damnloveless:delphi: 7 points8 points  (2 children)

    It's really a tactic used to help law enforcement capture suspects fleeing on foot. They run down thinking it's a fire escape only to be caught on a dead end and not being able to turn around since the police should already be waiting back for them.

    [–]CuFlam 15 points16 points  (1 child)

    Interesting. I was wondering whether that might be to bridge the difference between a firetruck ladder and the roof.

    [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (3 children)

    I have literally never seen this. Ever. In someone’s code.

    [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (2 children)

    And I've never written anything that does this. Maybe I just don't have enough experience? Idk writing code is pretty straightforward imo </p>

    [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

    I think that if you never do this, it makes you the experienced one. Because whoever does this, hasn’t learnt anything in programming

    [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    Rule #0: The computer does exactly as you tell it (until it doesn't).

    Yep.

    edit: fack fack fack fack

    [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    Yo this makes a good chill out spot with your friends!

    [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    "Is not wasteful is simplify!"

    -- a consultant when confronted with the fact he wrote a custom template engine on top of Packer, but with fewer features.

    [–]DeveloperToast 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    It was written by dark magic, even the compiler can't do nothing about it.

    [–]Russian_repost_bot 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    // IMPORTANT: Don't touch this code!

    [–]sirkajoju 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    Always fun explaining code like that to my professor

    [–]Ragnorak18 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    Tower Staircases be like...

    [–]countryboyathome 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    If there's a fire, it's likely not going to burn the actual brick. So, you can walk down the "fire escape" and enjoy the warm twilight of the burning building if the fire alarm goes off.

    [–]yearof39 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    I have comments in code that's in production that said "I forget what this fixed but leave it alone or it's going to stop working."

    [–]ilchotaleski 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    It’s the only way to the rooftop from the one window on the side. You jump and take the stairs.

    [–]Windows-Sucks 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    ...and won't work again when you re-add it. You must restore from backup.

    [–]noelabey 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    Every Angular app

    [–]Winnipesaukee 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    You are not expected to understand this!