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"Invisible" <voi### [at] dev null> wrote in message
news:47591445@news.povray.org...
>
> Of course, The Real WTF is that they're asking you to check stuff over a
> few days before it goes live. ;-)
Actually I prefer that to the alternative: finding the mess in production
next week when someone complains.
My boss had no reason to suspect that anything was wrong. He asked me to
check a couple scripts just to make him happy. He's now very unhappy. *g*
> Me: "Every determinent is a candidate key."
My colleagues think it's strange that I can list, from memory, the
requirements for each normal form, some 10 years after university. They
think its even stranger that I can look at a table and tell in a couple
seconds what normal form its in.
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Gail Shaw wrote:
> "Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
> news:47591445@news.povray.org...
>> Of course, The Real WTF is that they're asking you to check stuff over a
>> few days before it goes live. ;-)
>
> Actually I prefer that to the alternative: finding the mess in production
> next week when someone complains.
True. But finding out 2 weeks ago would have been even better, no?
> My boss had no reason to suspect that anything was wrong. He asked me to
> check a couple scripts just to make him happy. He's now very unhappy. *g*
Ah, but can your boss actually do anything about this mess? That's the
crucial question... ;-)
>> Me: "Every determinent is a candidate key."
>
> My colleagues think it's strange that I can list, from memory, the
> requirements for each normal form, some 10 years after university. They
> think its even stranger that I can look at a table and tell in a couple
> seconds what normal form its in.
Yeah, cos after all, it's not like normal form is *important* or
anything, is it?
*weeps softly in the corner*
By the way... what *is* 4th normal form?
(I was one of the few people in the class who could understand the
normal forms - and why they matter - but we never looked at anything
above BCNF.)
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Gail Shaw wrote:
> "Tom Austin" <taustin> wrote in message news:47594dde$1@news.povray.org...
>
>> Since you've been dragged in to 'check' it, are you now responsible to
>> 'care' for it. Then I REALLY feel for you.
>
> I'd be responsible to care for it even if I hadn't seen it.
>
> I'm the person the users call when the database apps are slow, so slow code
> in production is automatically my responsibility.
> Persionally I'm glad I found it this week and not next week.
>
>
The I hope that you have an understanding boss who is willing to work
with you.
Tom
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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Oh, I've seen reports of managers who won't believe that a particular
> task actually takes 20 minutes, and "can't you just change it to only
> take 3 seconds?"
True. Completely unrealistic expectations is another phenomenon among
programming-illiterate bosses...
OTOH, I partially understand them: If they know nothing about programming,
how can they know how much time a certain task requires? And depending on
the trustability of the programmer, how can they know if what he says is the
truth or not?
> I guess the root of all this is people who have no concept of what is or
> isn't possible with a computer. But it's more than that - people who
> have no clue but *think* they do.
"Hey, I took a 4-hour programming course in 1984. I know everything
about programming!"
--
- Warp
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"Tom Austin" <taustin> wrote in message news:47596e0a@news.povray.org...
> The I hope that you have an understanding boss who is willing to work
> with you.
>
My boss is understanding, the users on the other hand...
I enjoy the job. I just wish the developers didn't keep on creating work for
me. I have quite enough as it is.
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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:47596a5f$1@news.povray.org...
> True. But finding out 2 weeks ago would have been even better, no?
The ideal would have been finding out at design time. But is wishes were
horses...
> Ah, but can your boss actually do anything about this mess? That's the
> crucial question... ;-)
He can't stop it going in, it's too late and too many people have been
promised, etc, etc. IT's getting a bad rep for late delivery as is.
He is middle-upper management and he has enough authority to demand a
redesign (which he has) and to decide who does that (which he has) and to
'suggest' an examination of the way the developers work, to ensure this
doesn't happen again.
I foresee a lot of meeting next week.
> Yeah, cos after all, it's not like normal form is *important* or
> anything, is it?
>
> *weeps softly in the corner*
To C# developers it probably isn't, just as the patterns for app design
aren't that important to me. But in that case, they should keep their
fingers out of the DBs
> By the way... what *is* 4th normal form?
It's one I've seldom come across and doesn't apply often. Has to do with
multiple unrelated dependent attributes in a table.
Say we're writing a teaching management system. We need to store what
languages a teacher speaks and what courses they teach. We come up with
something like this
Teacher Language Course
Mr X English Account 1
Mr X French Account 1
Mr X English Ethics 1
Mr X French Ethics 1
Mrs S English Maths 1
Mrs S English Maths 2
Miss Z English History 1
Miss Z German History 1
It is in B-C normal form, however if we needed to indicate that Miss Z
starts teaching Archaeology 1, we need to add 2 rows.
4th normal form indicates that the two attributes should be split out into
selerate tables, so that there's one table that has the teacher's languages
and one that has the courses they teach.
That said, if the table stored the courses that the teacher offers and the
language that they are offered in, the above table would not be in violation
of 4th normal form.
Wiki has (as usual) a section on it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_normal_form
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scott wrote:
>
> And here's what happens when you mess with stuff:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyatt_Regency_walkway_collapse
>
I used to live roughly in the KC area, and a friend of mine used to go
to the "tea dances" at that place--thank goodness she wasn't there that day.
It definitely filled up the news for a while.
--Sherry Shaw
--
#macro T(E,N)sphere{x,.4rotate z*E*60translate y*N pigment{wrinkles scale
.3}finish{ambient 1}}#end#local I=0;#while(I<5)T(I,1)T(1-I,-1)#local I=I+
1;#end camera{location-5*z}plane{z,37 pigment{granite color_map{[.7rgb 0]
[1rgb 1]}}finish{ambient 2}}// TenMoons
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Invisible wrote:
>
> I guess the root of all this is people who have no concept of what is or
> isn't possible with a computer. But it's more than that - people who
> have no clue but *think* they do.
Never underestimate the power of managerial cluelessness. As far as I
can tell, most bosses think of programmers as something like peasant
beet farmers. We know how to do something they don't--not because we're
trained professionals or anything, but because bosses don't dirty
their hands with that sort of thing.
Well, going to go scrub some code out from under my fingernails now.
--Sherry Shaw
--
#macro T(E,N)sphere{x,.4rotate z*E*60translate y*N pigment{wrinkles scale
.3}finish{ambient 1}}#end#local I=0;#while(I<5)T(I,1)T(1-I,-1)#local I=I+
1;#end camera{location-5*z}plane{z,37 pigment{granite color_map{[.7rgb 0]
[1rgb 1]}}finish{ambient 2}}// TenMoons
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Sherry Shaw wrote:
> Never underestimate the power of managerial cluelessness. As far as I
> can tell, most bosses think of programmers as something like peasant
> beet farmers. We know how to do something they don't--not because we're
> trained professionals or anything, but because bosses don't dirty their
> hands with that sort of thing.
>
> Well, going to go scrub some code out from under my fingernails now.
Well, it could be worse. Ever read the daily WTF articles about the MDs
who think they can program but actually can't? ("Stand back you clueless
fools and let me show you how a *real* programmer does it!" "Yes boss.")
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
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And lo on Fri, 07 Dec 2007 09:48:12 -0000, Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> did
spake, saying:
> I'll never be able to find the link now, but there was one company who
> phoned up some web design consultants and said they wanted them to bui
ld
> a website that shows DVD-quality fullscreen video but loads in under 1
> second on a 56k modem.
http://www.clientcopia.com/
http://clientcopia.com/quotes.php?id=15 perhaps.
--
Phil Cook
--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com
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