Comment On 'Tis a Gift to be Simple

24 minutes, or 25 minutes? Which is it?

TRWTF is that we still think outsourcing by management is worthy of a wtf.

Security through complexity (and maybe obfuscation), sounds like a great idea. There will be no way your developer can hurt you then!

"Someone found an old design document written by a former employee that seems like just what they're looking for, too."

That is always the icing on the cake!

This is absurd. There was no such thing as VBScript, COM, or debuggers in 1979. DOS had not even been invented yet.

Nice try, Alex.


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Note from Alex: As others have pointed out below, that was meant as a way to humorously imply decor was outdated... also, as much as I'd love to take credit for this article, Remy is the author. But I proofread it... so I'll take 2% credit!

...hastur.bat...

Wait...what?

A fool and his money are soon parted... The real WTF continues to be that big financial organisations are clueless about managing their IT resources.

Pretty much every major investment bank I know of has their IT staff employed by business area rather than having a standalone IT department to handle technical issues across and in multiple business areas.

And they are still obsessed with head-counts rather than need.

jjtypospotter:

24 minutes, or 25 minutes? Which is it?

It probably depended on which day of the week it was. Or whether it was high tide.

Bill:

This is absurd. There was no such thing as VBScript, COM, or debuggers in 1979. DOS had not even been invented yet.

Nice try, Alex.

I think the reference to 1979 may have been a bit of sarcasm. As in, the meeting room would have been considered aggressively modern IF it had been 1979...

bl@h:

TRWTF is that we still think outsourcing by management is worthy of a wtf.

Perhaps instead of outsourcing by management we should just outsource management.

Alargule:

...hastur.bat...

Wait...what?

heh.. got a kick out that one.

The clock needs to be reset to midnight every eight minutes? This concept makes my eyes bleed.

That the so-called consultants (I wouldn't consult them for information on the colour of the sky, myself) didn't automate it makes blood gush from every bodily orifice.

Thanks, guys.

Why didn't Corey write a program to do the import himself?

Or manage the consultants when they came in to make sure they don't make a mess?

Neil:

Why didn't Corey write a program to do the import himself?

Or manage the consultants when they came in to make sure they don't make a mess?

Because numerous programs have already been written to manage consultants... svn, tfs, cvs, Red Queen

Have you ever worked for a huge company?

I'm currently slurping Excel files, doing magic to them in a sane system, and then spewing the data back into Excel files.
My manager told me I needed to "Have more formulas and stuff" in there, even though my sane backend does all the calculations.

I didn't like doing it, but in order to keep my job, I modified the Excel exporter to put the formulas in the Excel sheet rather than doing it in my code.
The Excel file takes twice as long to open now.

There's a lot we as programmers need to do, even when it's insane and we don't want to. The bigger the company, the more silly tasks like this, and I work for a 10,000+ employee company.

CAPTCHA: verto -> First-person singular present tense of vertere. I looked it up.
Am I doing this CAPTCHA ting right?

jjtypospotter:

24 minutes, or 25 minutes? Which is it?

I guess your reading comprehension is good, but does anyone seriously NOT know to read the f'ing source?

If (TDWTF.CurrentArticle.Author == "Remy Porter") {
ViewSource(TDWTF.CurrentArticle);
}

Addendum (2010-09-07 09:57):

Bill:

Nice try, Alex.

Smitty:

I understood what Alex was getting at.

Question: Do you guys even look at the "Author" field above the article?

Neil:

Why didn't Corey write a program to do the import himself?

Or manage the consultants when they came in to make sure they don't make a mess?

Dear Bells-Torgo
In case you haven't noticed, most of the users of this site are passive-aggressive and prefer to sit back and watch Rome burn so they can say I told you so.
In case you can’t tell, this is a grown-up place. The
It's hard to do anything when you don't have management support.
fact that you insist on using consultants
clearly shows that you’re too young and too stupid
to be in the insurance game.
Well, that and you find out real quick that if you stick your neck out it's not going to be appreciated anyway.
Go away and grow up.
Oh, well.
Sincerely,
Bert Glanstron

I worked at a Healthcare company with just such a system, however it was designed internally by the "Senior Architect".

I know... invoking old gods names to get the job done is never the answer, unless you want to make it Codethulu!

If the clock is being reset to midnight every 8 minutes, how the server "know" when 24 (or 25) minutes has elapsed and that it's time to run hastur.bat?

My inner child is crying inside. Waaaaaah!

Seriously, some people can't handle simplicity.

But the failure is still partly with the IT guy. He should have had the balls to stand up and say "Thank you so much for your help and for giving this issue proper consideration. I am pretty confident we can get it done internally for $20K. Why not try that first? If we run into difficulties, we can still call on consultants for help."

And if the execs resist, throw in a bunch of techno-babble to meet their complexity level requirements.

Should have worked...unless half of the $3.5M went to the execs pockets in form of kick backs.... 'cause I can't imagine how on earth they justified that price for a few scripts.

Bells-Torgo, huh?

Does their insurance look after the place while the master is away?

What a coincidence. I hastur.bat about every 24 or 25 minutes, too.

DrJDX:

jjtypospotter:

24 minutes, or 25 minutes? Which is it?

I guess your reading comprehension is good, but does anyone seriously NOT know to read the f'ing source?

If (TDWTF.CurrentArticle.Author == "Remy Porter") {
ViewSource(TDWTF.CurrentArticle);
}

Addendum (2010-09-07 09:57):

Bill:

Nice try, Alex.

Smitty:

I understood what Alex was getting at.

Question: Do you guys even look at the "Author" field above the article?

It's 7 AM on the first day after a 3-day bender and I'm sitting in the aforementioned horrid 70s-esque insurance building. Cut me some slack.

I read between your lines...

Silly, silly Corey.

Never ever make a suggestion about anything. Have you not read that cartoon "Journey to Blameville", starring Suggestion Sam and Manager Meg?

"...and .NET stored procedures."

Er, what?

I believed everything, until the part about finding an old design document. Not that it couldn't happen, I would just expect whoever found said document to read it, tweak it as the requirements probably changed, and slap their name on it.

[As if people just randomly peruse old abandoned design documents, shaaa right!!!!] In our company you couldn't likely ever find it (unless you wrote it) if it wasn't formally released.

Bill&Ted:

"...and .NET stored procedures."

Er, what?

I'm assuming he meant CLR stored procedures

That's no policy entry system...that's a space station!

UTR:

Neil:

Why didn't Corey write a program to do the import himself?

Or manage the consultants when they came in to make sure they don't make a mess?

Dear Bells-Torgo
In case you haven't noticed, most of the users of this site are passive-aggressive and prefer to sit back and watch Rome burn so they can say I told you so.
In case you can’t tell, this is a grown-up place. The
It's hard to do anything when you don't have management support.
fact that you insist on using consultants
clearly shows that you’re too young and too stupid
to be in the insurance game.
Well, that and you find out real quick that if you stick your neck out it's not going to be appreciated anyway.
Go away and grow up.
Oh, well.
Sincerely,
Bert Glanstron

Finally - my obsessive highlighting pays off!

If the clock is being reset to midnight every 8 minutes, how the server "know" when 24 (or 25) minutes has elapsed and that it's time to run hastur.bat?

I guess you could maintain a counter of the number of times the clock has been reset. When the counter hits a multiple of 3 you can run hastur.bat (or wait an additional minute).

I'm curious exactly how the consultants got everything to run. Did they manually run batch files every x minutes?

What ever you do, do NOT run this 3 times in a row.

lol, I was just asking because I know Corey was probably perm.

I switched to contracting years back, I love you guys, you keep me in a job with your can do attitudes :)

Neil:

Why didn't Corey write a program to do the import himself?

Or manage the consultants when they came in to make sure they don't make a mess?

Surely someone you entrust with 3.5 million doesn't have to be supervised, right?

To be fair, the scope of the project might really have been too big to handle it with internal resources. Corey probably had enough to do as it was.

UTR:

Neil:

Why didn't Corey write a program to do the import himself?

Or manage the consultants when they came in to make sure they don't make a mess?

Dear Bells-Torgo
In case you haven't noticed, most of the users of this site are passive-aggressive and prefer to sit back and watch Rome burn so they can say I told you so.
In case you can’t tell, this is a grown-up place. The
It's hard to do anything when you don't have management support.
fact that you insist on using consultants
clearly shows that you’re too young and too stupid
to be in the insurance game.
Well, that and you find out real quick that if you stick your neck out it's not going to be appreciated anyway.
Go away and grow up.
Oh, well.
Sincerely,
Bert Glanstron

lol, I was just asking because I know Corey was probably perm.

I switched to contracting years back, I love you guys, you keep me in a job with your can do attitudes :)

timias:

I believed everything, until the part about finding an old design document. Not that it couldn't happen, I would just expect whoever found said document to read it, tweak it as the requirements probably changed, and slap their name on it.

[As if people just randomly peruse old abandoned design documents, shaaa right!!!!] In our company you couldn't likely ever find it (unless you wrote it) if it wasn't formally released.

The "old design document" was the one that Corey wrote at the beginning of the article, the same one that was passed over in favour of the expensive consultant's solution. It was probably just a creative embelishment but the obvious indication is that the company wanted to retrograde back to the simple solution - the very same solution that Corey presented in the first place. Do keep up.

Matthew Parent:

If the clock is being reset to midnight every 8 minutes, how the server "know" when 24 (or 25) minutes has elapsed and that it's time to run hastur.bat?

I guess you could maintain a counter of the number of times the clock has been reset. When the counter hits a multiple of 3 you can run hastur.bat (or wait an additional minute).

I'm curious exactly how the consultants got everything to run. Did they manually run batch files every x minutes?

That's a good idea, but I think you are underestimating the complexity of this project. We have already allocated 3.5M for deployment, and have decided that the the time will be decided by three r910's voting on the correct time and then invoking hastur.bat via RPC...

Kempeth:

Neil:

Why didn't Corey write a program to do the import himself?

Or manage the consultants when they came in to make sure they don't make a mess?

Surely someone you entrust with 3.5 million doesn't have to be supervised, right?

To be fair, the scope of the project might really have been too big to handle it with internal resources. Corey probably had enough to do as it was.

Would you hire a builder to build you a house with all your cash and not bother to go around and check the progress and that it's coming along as you would want it?

This is the real world :)

Kull:

Neil:

Why didn't Corey write a program to do the import himself?

Or manage the consultants when they came in to make sure they don't make a mess?

Because numerous programs have already been written to manage consultants... svn, tfs, cvs, Red Queen

Awesome, I didn't know consultants could be managed through source control systems, I wish I knew about the command "svn check consultants code for wtf" or "svn make consultant smart" sooner, could have saved companies millions!

Sylver:

My inner child is crying inside. Waaaaaah!

Seriously, some people can't handle simplicity.

But the failure is still partly with the IT guy. He should have had the balls to stand up and say "Thank you so much for your help and for giving this issue proper consideration. I am pretty confident we can get it done internally for $20K. Why not try that first? If we run into difficulties, we can still call on consultants for help."

And if the execs resist, throw in a bunch of techno-babble to meet their complexity level requirements.

Should have worked...unless half of the $3.5M went to the execs pockets in form of kick backs.... 'cause I can't imagine how on earth they justified that price for a few scripts.

Just $20K? You may be a great developer but you clearly have no business sense. They are willing to spend $2M at least and have that budget already so offer to do it yourself and split the money 4 ways, $500K for yourself and $500K for each of the 3 "suits". If they insist that it must be outsourced then offer your resignation on condition that you start up your own consulting company and have them pay $500K to your consulting company to do the work. The $20K sum you mentioned though - you can ask for that as an up-front advance payment so you have something to survive on while you start up your company and do the work.

Anonymous:

The "old design document" was the one that Corey wrote at the beginning of the article, the same one that was passed over in favour of the expensive consultant's solution. It was probably just a creative embelishment but the obvious indication is that the company wanted to retrograde back to the simple solution - the very same solution that Corey presented in the first place. Do keep up.

Don't worry, they'll probably ask the same old consultants to elaborate it. Or if not them, some random identikit consultants who'll make the same old mistakes.

This all reminds me of our new corporate email system.

This comment should be set to frist every 8 minutes. I suggest you automate this

Alargule:

...hastur.bat...

Wait...what?

Whatever you do, just don't call it three times in a row.

Neil:

Why didn't Corey write a program to do the import himself?

Or manage the consultants when they came in to make sure they don't make a mess?

Of course! That's the solution to the whole "consultants" problem! We just need to make sure they don't make a mess! Why did nobody think of this before?

(for those missing a sarcasm detector, this post *isn't* from 1979)

What I don't understand about all the WTFs of this type is why the companies who receive the shitty work pay for it, or fix it themselves. If you employ a contractor to build you a new office building and he delivers a pile of sand with a revolving door on top, you don't pay for it. If you buy a new car, but they deliver a truck, missing two wheels, with gerbils instead of an engine, you'd just send it back. Why doesn't the techie involved explain to his bosses that the consultants have not delivered what they were contracted to provide?

I like the big diagram. To me - it communicates quality!

Indeed, it's sounds like Corey missed a wonderful opportunity of starting a freelance career...

Alargule:

...hastur.bat...

Wait...what?

What a strange file, it just says hastur, hastur, hast*&Y#$&

Error: No route to host.

...snipped a bunch of whining about the deletion of off-topic comments made in response to an obvious troll...


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Note from Alex: the TDWTF Forums welcome your discussion about health care legislation