• Gerald Weinberg (unregistered) in reply to Don

    It was very good practice to trace back to the origin of these data files.

    It would also be very good practice to trace forward to see where this report goes once a year. In many cases such as this, the person(s) receiving the report are not looking at it, or perhaps they don't even exist in the organization any longer. Or in some cases, are actually dead.

    Which would all be good, because under the circumstances, there's zero probability that the data in the report are valid.

    I'd suggest you not run the report one year and wait to see if anyone shows up asking, "Where's my report?"

  • (cs) in reply to Captcha:abico
    Captcha:abico:
    I thought Nordic countries were moderately competent.

    Finland is the Wales of Scandinavia.

  • (cs) in reply to Gerald Weinberg
    Gerald Weinberg:
    It was very good practice to trace back to the origin of these data files.

    It would also be very good practice to trace forward to see where this report goes once a year. In many cases such as this, the person(s) receiving the report are not looking at it, or perhaps they don't even exist in the organization any longer. Or in some cases, are actually dead.

    Which would all be good, because under the circumstances, there's zero probability that the data in the report are valid.

    I'd suggest you not run the report one year and wait to see if anyone shows up asking, "Where's my report?"

    I think the actual question raised by the end user will be "Where's my pension check?"
  • M. Proctor (unregistered) in reply to a random passerby
    a random passerby:
    The Central Bureaucracy would be proud. He must be Bureaucrat Grade 19, at least.

    JAMAICA!

    Filed under: references are funny, Akismet always ruins the best posts

  • qbolec (unregistered) in reply to Gerald Weinberg
    Gerald Weinberg:
    I'd suggest you not run the report one year and wait to see if anyone shows up asking, "Where's my report?"
    That's how we actually do it in my company. Even if we know who ordered the report.
  • qbolec (unregistered) in reply to Zylon
    Zylon:
    da Doctah:
    IWPTA
    WTF.
    I was pleased to answer: I wrote prior to anyone. It was pitty to anounce. I want pretty tall angelina. It would pass trough assertion.
  • (cs) in reply to qbolec
    qbolec:
    Zylon:
    da Doctah:
    IWPTA
    WTF.
    I was pleased to answer: I wrote prior to anyone. It was pitty to anounce. I want pretty tall angelina. It would pass trough assertion.
    I Wacky-Parsed This As...
  • Summoner (unregistered)

    TRWTF is Salmiak?

  • (cs) in reply to java.lang.Chris;
    java.lang.Chris;:
    * In case this comes across as Francophobia, I should point out that the British equivalent of Bull, ICI, was also by that point a dumping ground for bad technology (from Fujitsu). If you've ever had to use a object-oriented database called ODB-II you'll know what I mean.
    I think you mean ICL. ICI was a chemicals company.
  • moz (unregistered) in reply to Gerald Weinberg
    Gerald Weinberg:
    I'd suggest you not run the report one year and wait to see if anyone shows up asking, "Where's my report?"
    Running the pensions report isn't Sampo's responsibility, though. He just has to document the thing so that, if anyone ever wants it to do something differently, they know where to look. No-one ever will, as they're used to the report being impossible to change, but perhaps Sampo's audit will end up on the same shelf as next year's run.
  • Mark (unregistered) in reply to Cbuttius

    That's what Views are for. Only expose what you want for that particular user/group.

  • (cs)

    Strange story, though: Finland doesn't strike me as a country that is particularly keen on bureaucracy. Had it been Italy, it would have been a different story. Then, programming guidelines would have probably been drafted during the Mussolini government.

  • Derek (unregistered)

    Many years ago I used to work on a Government run workers insurance mainframe. Once a table was added to the database (some 400 tables if I remember correctly), management was too scared to perform proper maintenance on the data as the requirements of the system changed over time.

    So when the reporting systems I worked on were reading data from various tables, they had to change the way they interpreted field contents depending on the date the data was entered. In some tables, various fields would have a range of "magic dates" devining their contents, often different to other fields in the same table.

    Needless to say, non of this was documented and it was only through trial, error and common sense that we worked most of the dates out.

  • (cs) in reply to Gurth
    Gurth:
    toshir0:
    Bureaumancer ! I love that.

    You just happened to find the almost only character class which is not defined in Rolemaster tabletop RPG. (besides Owl Herder and Yogurt Swimmer)

    The chance is good that all those exist in WFRP, though.
    Warhammer is far from having half of Rolemaster's character classes. Far. These people (at ICE) are raving lunatics when it comes to diversity.

  • refoveo (unregistered) in reply to curtmack
    curtmack:
    In Finnish folklore, the Sampo is a mythical device that brings the bearer good fortune. According to one interpretation, it is a millstone that can mill salt, flour, and gold from thin air.

    I think the Sampo in this story is most likely going to be milling a lot of spaghetti and bile, though.

    I think "an application which was older than Sampo" must be really really old.

  • Gomer Pyle (unregistered)

    I served my own Starship Troopers time doing IT for the Finnish Army. I'd share all the brilliant WTFery, but I'd have to kill you if I did.

  • BitDreamer (unregistered)

    Many European nations require their citizens to serve in the military. For those not ready for that Starship Troopers-esque future, most of those nations offer a civilian alternative.

    Did nobody realize that this is backwards? Has anyone read Starship Troopers or even seen the movie?

    Citizens aren't required to serve in the military. You have to serve in the military to become a citizen. Until then, you're just a resident.

    Captcha: jumentum - not clear on what you meant - You meant ummmm?

  • Billy The Clown (unregistered) in reply to Don

    I am sure there is a rule against that

  • Nemo (unregistered)

    Wind and fire come from the gods of the sky. But Crom is your god. And he lives in the Earth. One day, the giants stole the secret of flat files from Crom. The gods were angered, and the earth shook. But in their rage, they left the secret of flat files on the battlefield. And we who found it are just men. Not gods or giants. Just men. And you, Conan, must unravel the enigma of flat files. For in this world, you can not trust men, nor women, nor beasts. But these (points to flat files) you can trust.

  • jay (unregistered) in reply to English Man
    English Man:
    Mcoder:
    snoofle:
    export it to a flat file as fixed length fields (e.g.: one field consisting of <line-length> columns and one field consisting of CRLF)

    You know, that's one of those rare situations where XML is usefull.

    Good try.

    And so the search for the elusive case where XML is actually the best solution continues ...

  • jay (unregistered)

    Wait. They weren't allowed to use databases, so they dumped the data from a database to a flat file? If they weren't allowed to use databases, how did they have the data in a database to begin with?

  • jay (unregistered)

    I used to work for the military. The Pentagon (top military leadership in the U.S.) would put out rules that were generally reasonable, but by the time they got to our base they would be interpreted to be totally wacky. Like, the Pentagon put out a rule saying, "Avoid doing development work on production systems." I'm pretty sure that what they meant was, don't be messing with the live code while the users are trying to run it; have a separate development region. But our base interpreted that to mean, No development work can be done on any computers connected to a network that also has production systems connected to it. They also had a rule that there could be only one network on base and all computers must be connected to the base network. So, I asked, where are we supposed to do development? We literally circled around this question for years.

  • Axus (unregistered) in reply to Don
    Don:
    snoofle:
    ... It'd still be within the imposed rules.
    I smell a bureaumancer!

    Nominee for 2012 Best New Word

  • (cs) in reply to dkf
    dkf:
    java.lang.Chris;:
    * In case this comes across as Francophobia, I should point out that the British equivalent of Bull, ICI, was also by that point a dumping ground for bad technology (from Fujitsu). If you've ever had to use a object-oriented database called ODB-II you'll know what I mean.
    I think you mean ICL. ICI was a chemicals company.

    Yup, it was ICL. They had a facility next door to my company, actually part of the same massive industrial unit in Bracknell. ICL shut that facility down when they started to move everything to Ireland in order to take advantage of the lower business taxes there. Some of the equipment that was removed by the scrappers must have been museum pieces - bizarre mainframes and minicomputers I'd never heard of before.

  • Rnd( (unregistered) in reply to BitDreamer
    BitDreamer:
    Many European nations require their citizens to serve in the military. For those not ready for that Starship Troopers-esque future, most of those nations offer a civilian alternative.

    Did nobody realize that this is backwards? Has anyone read Starship Troopers or even seen the movie?

    Citizens aren't required to serve in the military. You have to serve in the military to become a citizen. Until then, you're just a resident.

    Captcha: jumentum - not clear on what you meant - You meant ummmm?

    Specially when military service wasn't required just.

    Still, I'm not entirely sure if this was better option to a half year of walking in forest...

  • Dyspeptic Curmudgeon (unregistered)

    I dropped in to catch up on my daily WTF deficit and read this.

    Then I went to look at Dilbert.

    Today, Dilbert gets to play Sampo....

    http://www.dilbert.com/#strip_enlarged_2012-09-26

    Captcha: letatio Isn't that a 'potatoe' in french???

  • Kasper (unregistered) in reply to ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL
    ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL:
    TRWTF is finding out that the pension payments were homosexual.
    The idea of money having sex offends me.
  • gonzalo (I couldn't login don't know why :( ) (unregistered)

    The little pony is really a part of that report system??? I want this to be a cute comment to!

  • (cs) in reply to Dyspeptic Curmudgeon
    Dyspeptic Curmudgeon:
    Captcha: letatio Isn't that a 'potatoe' in french???

    Non.

  • Peter (unregistered) in reply to jay
    jay:
    We literally circled around this question for years.
    I think you mean either "We metaphorically circled around this question for years" or "We circled around this question for literally years".
  • Axel (unregistered)

    The Finnish film "Sampo" was dubbed into English and released in the US as "The Day the Earth Froze." It was later lampooned on the popular TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000. So a lot of us in the USA are aware of that bit of Finnish folklore, including, I'm sure, Remy.

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