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Admin
Transact-SQL will accept double-quotes to indicate string literals if certain kludgey settings are active. SQLite's dialect will accept ==.
But you obviously don't really know SQL, in the biblical sense... POST_TEXT = "Frist!" means compare the field named POST_TEXT and the field named Frist!. According to the ANSI standard, double-quotes mark an identifier. Yeah, I know, SQL is TRWTF.
Admin
DBA - Din Bhar Aaram. Loose translation in English mean - Whole Day Rest!
That is term we use for these good for nothings whose only job is to learn unix cp command and get in position of authority and make other beg for request to be honored.
Admin
Admin
Admin
I knew I was living in a Camus novel when I had to write a report on him in English class, and the only one of his books my high school library had was a copy of L’Étranger (in French!)
(sadly, I'm not kidding...)
Admin
Admin
Shawn sounds like a crustacean, too old and bitter to be of any use at a modern software company. He should go support legacy Oracle installs elsewhere. Ideally somewhere that allows him to hide forever behind reams of time-wasting process and policy.
Admin
Agree.
But, I'm assuming a possesive though, as per the WTF where his use of "I" is the subject of the meeting.
Admin
"We're a little hung over today. We think we're going to throw up."
Admin
I have a friend with a jumper that has written on the back "There is no fuck you in team"
Admin
Dude, translating Camus would be a crime. I just started reading the Dune saga in english and I believe the french translation was a crime. traduttore tradittore, learn languages and fck translations.
Admin
After 16 years in this career, wiped/corrupt data has only occurred two times (at different companies)
In both situations, the issues were caused by the actual DBA...
... ...
Drink that up for awhile, then come back and pretend your comment still has merit. I laughed.
Hint: if at all possible, don't hire idiots, in any role. It's sad that this is a luxury not many of us can control.
Admin
Admin
Are you for real? The DBA who wears robes, dims lights, and tosses out proposals for lack of whitespace or just for the hell of it? He's being painted as hot shit?
Admin
Team! Team, team, team, team, team! I even love saying the word "team"!
Admin
Admin
I find that this story paints a rather stereotypical and unfair image of Oracle DBAs. Our DBAs are, without exception, friendly, approachable and most of all helpful people, and they've really made an effort to cut down on the human sacrifices.
Admin
Admin
What I look forward to every morning is seeing an old article that never changes. Brought to me by the daily wtf.
Admin
Maybe someone has already posted this - but its not like I do care...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGFGD5pj03M
Admin
That sounds more like Kafka, frankly. Or Steve Meretzky, maybe.
Admin
Small tweak in someone's behaviour who wasn't getting along with the team. Over time, this probably fixed at least some of the "who does he think he is, this new guy!" problem just by a small change in language.
And he did it without finger pointing.
I tip my bonnet to you, sir.
Admin
Admin
there is in tiiiiiiiiiiim
Admin
Do you honestly think using the word "I" instead of "we" was the underlying problem in this case?
Teams are made of individuals, like it or not. As soon as work is assigned to an individual, you now have individual responsibility. If any of those individuals were hired for their knowledge or skills, you have a reason to grant them some authority.
Where things break down is fuzzy or overlapping boundaries between authority and responsibility. The "we" thing is part of a wider move toward collectivising responsibility and centralising authority at the manager. This leaves the door open to shoddy work, and devalues the skills of everybody (except the manager).
It's nothing more than managerial sleight-of-hand. Where did the "individual fees pressured by responsbility" card go? Oh look, it vanished. Where did the "individual ego-trips on authority" card go? It vanished too! Wow, that's magic!
And yet software still remains buggy, and teams still fail, no matter how assiduously these practices are observed. The only difference is, now people remain smug for longer, right up until nearly the end of the team lifecycle, and the collapse of teams is accompanied by wide-eyed surprise. "I didn't do any work for the last six months but we were an amazing team" is something I have actually heard said.
Commenters who applaud the manager in this story have all missed the very last bit - where Shaun admits adding beaurocracy by refusing to expediate requests that he would have agreed to before. Does that make him an asshat? Nope, all that has happened is that moving from "I" to "we" has undermined his authority, whilst allowing him a chance to reduce his responsibility. He has made this trade-off - just like everybody does in that situation. The team appears more harmonious, and is a more pleasent place for insecure/incompetent members, but it is less effective now.
Admin
Actually that's true. When you say "I" in a message to a group, that's exactly the first reaction, especially when you are talking about rules, regulations and standards that were decided upon as a group.
Take a random rule, say "use a DB broker instead of direct statements". Sure, it was decided by the DBA as a one-man team, but the whole company agreed that the DBA makes the rules regarding the DB. Sure, everyone is free to challenge a rule, but not on a case-by-case basis and a rule must be respected for as long as it's in place, with all the advantages and disadvantages.
So the attitude at the end of the post is the correct one. "We" agreed on the current chain of responsibility, therefore "we" must follow the rules.
"We" also implies a mutual validation that gives the authority that "I" simply does not have.
Admin
I don't understand why Shawn was described as positive character here, when he was clearly one of those narrow-minded DBA dicks described just right in the first paragraph of that same story. Seriously...
Admin
correction: first 2 paragraphs; before "A New Opportunity"
Admin
When will DBAs (generally) grasp that databases are nothing more than data-fucking-stores, one of many various available, needless to say, and that pretty much every developer can complete the job (generally) literally without a DB expert in the house.
Admin
Are you hiring?
Admin
You exaggerated a little bit: nobody sane develops on production database to even be in situation to accidentally drop a table. While accidentally deleting db objects is certainly possible and perhaps even not seldom, DBAs should not restrict databases in DEV environment so much that developing and fixing accidental errors is impossible without them. I often make SQL changes on my own instance, which I then pass to DBA for review and application to dev db, mostly to avoid this DBA crap.
Admin
I read that phrase 3 times, and I can't understand it. I think that the usage of word "proud" is wrong here. There's got to be a better word, e.g. "asshole".
Admin
If all DBA's are like what you described yourself, this topic would not exist (which would be good). Unfortunately, most DBA's think that the development (or the company) wouldn't be able to exist without them.
Similar goes for desktop support people and network ops.
DBAs, desktop and network support exist to cater development and production, which is why company exists (development and production not necessarily relating to software).
Admin
With minor exceptions that are mostly related to tables driving reports (for performance reasons), tables SHOULD mimic applications objects! Databases (and tables therein) serve one purpose and one purpose only: to keep (store) data generated and used by the applications. Databases (and their god-administrators) are actually both replaceable (e.g. devs can relatively quickly switch to other data-store systems, equivalently useful, and most DBA's won't be able to accommodate quickly, cause they are most one-system-only "experts").
Admin
WTF are you talking about? RDBMS means RELATIONAL database system. Read: data stored in tables that CAN link one to another for EASIER and QUICKER data joins. Do you honestly think there's a developer that doesn't understand this and that can't do this without you?
There's a place for performance improvements that may include tables to be rearranged and similar. Any average developer can figure this out also without a DBA. Given that a developer team will typically have at least one senior developer (experienced), there probably isn't a true senior developer who doesn't already understand these things. So, we really don't need you beyond organizing backups, and perhaps help out with data transfers or similar, and watching out for patches and upgrades to the DB server. Got it? Even those things we could do without you, but we have better things to do. You should be paid hourly, under 25. That's how I value a DBA position.
When it comes to more complex (distributed) database servers, perhaps there we need you to set up and monitor (cause, mostly, I don't want to spend time to research for that one-time thing of setting up distributed SQL servers - even though, I really wanted to, I'm smart enough to understand and implement that, too).
Usage of word "I" above also means "developer" (or a "team").
Admin
Assholism comes into two forms, through experience or inherent ability; nurture or nature.
Assholes exist at every level of the software development process. Those in administrative positions tend to be the most annoying. A DBA that works well with the developers is treasure to behold. One that thwarts all developer activities is hemorrhoid. Developers that think all DBAs are useless and only exist as road blocks are most likely arrogant assholes themselves. A developer whose only unfortunate experience has been to deal with asshole DBAs will exist in despair.
If a DBA is working with a mix of dumbass and talented developers, he must follow the draconian policies to protect the database from the dumbasses screwing things up. If effective socialization of the policies has been completed, the talented developers will understand and begrudgingly follow them; while the dumbasses will just think the DBAs are being cruel assholes.
As a DBA that has worked in organizations that had both ends of the spectrum (mostly dumbasses or mostly talented), I have been an asshole and a helpful member of the team. As an asshole I have cloaked myself under layers of policies and procedures. As a team member I have demonstrated and explained better methods to effectively deliver new software.
Admin
Sounds like a case of an arsehole employee ending up with the arsehole employer and arsehole colleagues he deserved. Amazing how often that happens.
Admin
Seriously now, it should be pretty obvious that in any shop where the Oracle DBAs hold any sway, they will use parametrized queries, and will have a standard fallback to use in case the user agent weren't found.
While this means that the site may not be perfect, it will at least work. Perhaps it will even do statistics of which user strings were the most used, so that it might be supported in the future.
Admin
in "The IT crowd" of course!
Admin
TEIAM:
ftfy - there is now.