• sol (unregistered)

    Aren't we aproaching a y2kish day here on the 11th?

  • Skas (unregistered)

    yeah, DST's gonna screw someone up...

    GO GO FUD!

  • (cs)

    Let me guess, Twisty modified his script to emboss the fields and ran it, thus taking the next four months off.

    And is Twisty the German equivalent to Swirly? If so, how many hospital toilets did he have his head dunked in?

  • (cs) in reply to sol
    sol:
    Aren't we aproaching a y2kish day here on the 11th?
    Yep...Mar 11 - Nov 4 (http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/daylight_time.html).

    I can understand the "threat" to servers--mostly in generating logs. But, the worst possible effect: you're off an hour for 3 weeks. My, personal, viewpoint...

    [cue annoyingly sarcastic tone] ...ewww...scary...

    [EDIT] The keyword in this would be "personal" (i.e. home computer).

  • danodemano (unregistered) in reply to sol
    sol:
    Aren't we aproaching a y2kish day here on the 11th?

    Yep, it's already causing massive IT headachs where I work. We are scrambling to get everything updated.

    captcha: scooter (comment not found!)

  • (cs) in reply to KattMan
    KattMan:
    Let me guess, Twisty modified his script to emboss the fields and ran it, thus taking the next four months off.
    I think a better script would "emboss" a few fields every ten minutes, this way Twisty would be doing this job forever and his supervisor would see progress. "Today I embossed three hundred fields, which is 7% more than last week's average!"
  • (cs)

    I swear we've seen that picture before a few months back.

    That's OK, though, it conveys so many feelings perfectly that it seems applicable for about half of these articles.

  • anne (unregistered)

    who's the guy in that picture? he's kind of cute!

  • (cs)

    I can't wait for the year 2038 problem (someone had to say it)

  • Roger (unregistered) in reply to anne
    anne:
    who's the guy in that picture? he's kind of cute!
    yeah ! really cute !
  • Max (unregistered) in reply to noehch
    noehch:
    But, the worst possible effect: you're off an hour for 3 weeks.

    Unless your missile tracking systems try and lead the target, and accidentally lead an hour ahead (or behind), missing wildly.

    CAPTCHA: poindexter (who, me?)

  • ObiWayneKenobi (unregistered)

    Gotta love PHB incompetence.

    Someone remind me why this year's Daylight Time will cause problems when none of the previous one's would? They change the date or something? I never kept track of it and always had to be reminded to change my clock.

  • Bean (unregistered)

    Anyone else think the image looks like a young Billy Joe Armostring (lead singer of Green Day)?

    http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/7961/andreabillie322yc5.png

  • danodemano (unregistered) in reply to ObiWayneKenobi
    ObiWayneKenobi:
    Gotta love PHB incompetence.

    Someone remind me why this year's Daylight Time will cause problems when none of the previous one's would? They change the date or something? I never kept track of it and always had to be reminded to change my clock.

    From the above link: In 2006, daylight time begins on April 2 and ends on October 29. In 2007, daylight time begins on March 11 and ends on November 4.

  • pfarrell (unregistered)

    Using scripts is an easy argument to win with a boss.

    The bigger the change, the better it is to use scripts. Learning some simple regular expressions can save you so much time. Scripts can be rerun, have their accuracy checked, and are deterministic, manual changes don't have any of these attributes.

    For me, it's the mark of an amateur, to waste your time doing work the computer could be doing for you

  • (cs) in reply to sol
    sol:
    Aren't we aproaching a y2kish day here on the 11th?

    Yes, there are problems with this new DST switch. A couple I can think of are:

    1. We lost the use of some software for a few hours on Monday. Apparently there are some issues with certain (Win2003) servers.
    2. Canadians can't file taxes because CRA's computers aren't working.
    3. Hospitals are expecting a few deaths.
  • DSTMan (unregistered)

    I'm currently handling some DST issues for my company and upgrading Websphere vs. just updating some JDKs is a beeyotch.

    Also, I read somewhere recently that some jetfighters systems died when crossing the international date line.

    capcha: "yummy" - yes, it is almost lunchtime and I'm still on a troubleshooting call.

  • (cs) in reply to DSTMan
    DSTMan:
    Also, I read somewhere recently that some jetfighters systems died when crossing the international date line.

    Well, technically, those were Chinese MIGs flying over restricted Alaskan airspace this morning, but yeah, I guess they died.

  • anonymous (unregistered)

    The impact of DST isn't just one hour off. For example - if all your Active Directory servers are not synchronized there will be logon issues for clients. If your JRE has the old DST time and your operating system has another it might be interesting. If you have transactional applications where the client/POS is off an hour from the application......

    My company is patching bar code machines, blackberry servers, as well as the operating systems, databases, JRE, etc. The interesting thing about this is the visibility isn't as great as Y2k. My prediction is some businesses will have some problems. We shall see.

  • ObiWayneKenobi (unregistered) in reply to danodemano
    danodemano:
    From the above link: In 2006, daylight time begins on April 2 and ends on October 29. In 2007, daylight time begins on March 11 and ends on November 4.

    Thank ye kindly.

  • Ken (unregistered) in reply to Sad Bug Killer
    Sad Bug Killer:
    I can't wait for the year 2038 problem (someone had to say it)
    See this User Friendly strip on the subject.
  • Will (unregistered) in reply to danodemano
    danodemano:

    From the above link: In 2006, daylight time begins on April 2 and ends on October 29. In 2007, daylight time begins on March 11 and ends on November 4.

    Or, more generally: In the past, DST began on the first Sunday in April and ended on the last Sunday in October. Until further notice it will begin on the second Sunday in March and end on the first Sunday in November.

  • onomatopoeia (unregistered) in reply to Skas
    Skas:
    yeah, DST's gonna screw someone up...

    GO GO FUD!

    The Real WTF is DST! The rest of the world should follow Arizona's example (I guess there are a few other places that also don't change?) and just not do it!

    Honestly, I never understood how changing the time could be beneficial to anyone, including farmers.

  • (cs)

    A lot of people have been burned by automating things. You can test and practice all you want, then 10 minutes before "go time" someone changes an IP address or renames a column or does SOMETHING stupid that they shouldn't have done. The best case scenario is that your script just fails. The worst case is that half of it completes, the other half does something destructive, and the third half breaks the space time continuum along with all known knowledge of fractions.

    We all prefer to automate things, but it's not without it's own risks.

  • sol (unregistered) in reply to onomatopoeia
    onomatopoeia:
    Skas:
    yeah, DST's gonna screw someone up...

    GO GO FUD!

    The Real WTF is DST! The rest of the world should follow Arizona's example (I guess there are a few other places that also don't change?) and just not do it!

    Honestly, I never understood how changing the time could be beneficial to anyone, including farmers.

    I have agree isn't time we dug old Ben up, called him dumb ass and did away with the pain in @$$ that is DST... it really screws me up every year... I mean I was well adjusted to my sleep or lack there of and now I will be thrown off again... damn you Ben...

  • sjs (unregistered) in reply to onomatopoeia
    onomatopoeia:
    The Real WTF is DST! The rest of the world should follow Arizona's example (I guess there are a few other places that also don't change?) and just not do it!

    Honestly, I never understood how changing the time could be beneficial to anyone, including farmers.

    Clearly you don't live an area where DST is needed. Without DST it would get light at 10-11am here in the winter and dark at about 3-4pm. Screw that!

    Many countries near the equator do not have DST, such as the UAE (Dubai) and neighbouring nations.

    captcha: alarm ... how appropriate

  • jessica (unregistered) in reply to onomatopoeia

    So, the D stands for Daylight. Daylight is beneficial to everyone because they have to use less energy to create artificial light. Waking up an hour earlier and going to bed an hour earlier for part of the year means you save on candles/oil/whatever energy source.

    It's completely outdated now as we use artificial light during the day since we're not all farmers, but how can you not understand the concept?

  • PisS (unregistered) in reply to anne
    anne:
    who's the guy in that picture? he's kind of cute!

    He's the brother of the guy that was in 90210 TV show.

  • Code Slave (unregistered)

    The key words are ... ... "a gigantic, old, undocumented Access application"

    I'd have made him go through the application manually my self as well. Because gosh darn it... as sure as 99% of the fields are in the form [.]date[.] you can bet that somewhere there's a field that's txtBirthDay instead of txtBirthDate.

    "Sure, use the script... but you still gotta manually touch EVERY date field. Schnell!!!!"

  • Steve99 (unregistered) in reply to akatherder

    I agree. What I really hate is when the consensus becomes "we need a script to do this", when it could all be done manually in about a half hour if you just sat down and did the work manually.

  • Agamous Child (unregistered) in reply to akatherder

    That's three halfs.

  • Agamous Child (unregistered) in reply to akatherder
    akatherder:
    A lot of people have been burned by automating things. You can test and practice all you want, then 10 minutes before "go time" someone changes an IP address or renames a column or does SOMETHING stupid that they shouldn't have done. The best case scenario is that your script just fails. The worst case is that half of it completes, the other half does something destructive, and the third half breaks the space time continuum along with all known knowledge of fractions.

    We all prefer to automate things, but it's not without it's own risks.

    ARrrghh... That's three halfs... and two posts.

  • ax (unregistered) in reply to onomatopoeia
    onomatopoeia:
    Skas:
    yeah, DST's gonna screw someone up...

    GO GO FUD!

    The Real WTF is DST! The rest of the world should follow Arizona's example (I guess there are a few other places that also don't change?) and just not do it!

    Honestly, I never understood how changing the time could be beneficial to anyone, including farmers.

    It's annoying for farmers because they work an extra hour in the evening when everyone else is socializing instead of in the morning when everyone else is sleeping.

  • (cs) in reply to Code Slave
    Code Slave:
    The key words are ... ... "a gigantic, old, undocumented Access application"

    I'd have made him go through the application manually my self as well. Because gosh darn it... as sure as 99% of the fields are in the form [.]date[.] you can bet that somewhere there's a field that's txtBirthDay instead of txtBirthDate.

    "Sure, use the script... but you still gotta manually touch EVERY date field. Schnell!!!!"

    Actually maybe not. Considering this only affects dates that were saved and treated as dates you didn't have to worry about the field name itself. In an access application, forms are tied to a database table. So you read in a form, find the table it is attached to, scan the table for date fields read the mappings to find the form fields it is assigned to and you update. This is one of the things that Access made easy simply because of the strong coupling of it's UI with the data.

  • (cs) in reply to sjs
    sjs:
    Clearly you don't live an area where DST is needed. Without DST it would get light at 10-11am here in the winter and dark at about 3-4pm. Screw that!

    ?? So, where you are, with DST it would get light at 11am-12pm and dark at 4-5pm? How is this helpful?

    DST is going to screw me over real soon now -- it's just getting light enough that I could bike to work when I want to, but with DST it will be dark again. Just a temporary thing until the days get longer, but still...

    Meanwhile, sunset is already late enough for me right for biking. <sarcasm>Wow, that DST is a real energy-saver!</sarcasm>

    (Yes, I could bike in the dark with appropriate lights. Yes, I'm a pansy-ass.)

  • (cs) in reply to KattMan
    KattMan:
    Code Slave:
    The key words are ... ... "a gigantic, old, undocumented Access application"

    I'd have made him go through the application manually my self as well. Because gosh darn it... as sure as 99% of the fields are in the form [.]date[.] you can bet that somewhere there's a field that's txtBirthDay instead of txtBirthDate.

    "Sure, use the script... but you still gotta manually touch EVERY date field. Schnell!!!!"

    Actually maybe not. Considering this only affects dates that were saved and treated as dates you didn't have to worry about the field name itself. In an access application, forms are tied to a database table. So you read in a form, find the table it is attached to, scan the table for date fields read the mappings to find the form fields it is assigned to and you update. This is one of the things that Access made easy simply because of the strong coupling of it's UI with the data.

    That might work, unless the dates are stored internally with strings, then parsed out with internationalized formatting based on the XML configuration file.

  • iToad (unregistered)

    So the old COBOL programmer made so much overtime money fixing the Y2K problem that when he died, he could afford to be cryogenically frozen.

    In the year 9999, he was thawed out. After he was revived, they told him:

    "We're looking a huge amount of work to fix the Y10K bug in our software, and we understand that you know COBOL..."

  • (cs) in reply to AssimilatedByBorg
    AssimilatedByBorg:
    DST is going to screw me over real soon now -- it's just getting light enough that I could bike to work when I want to, but with DST it will be dark again. Just a temporary thing until the days get longer, but still...

    Meanwhile, sunset is already late enough for me right for biking. <sarcasm>Wow, that DST is a real energy-saver!</sarcasm>

    (Yes, I could bike in the dark with appropriate lights. Yes, I'm a pansy-ass.)

    Appropriate lights are expensive. I've got:

    1. Dual halogen front lights. (13W total output, lead-acid cell.)
    2. Flashing LED front light. (3 LEDs, 1W total)
    3. Rear red flashing LED. (5 LEDs)
    4. Reflective armband with 5 LEDs.
    5. Reflective armband with 3 LEDs.
    6. LED valve stems. (Blue, light up with visual streaks when wheels are moving.)
    7. Reflective vest with about 20 flashing red LEDs.
    8. Bright yellow jacket with retroreflective piping.
    9. Full set of reflectors.

    So yeah, I know what you mean about having to light up more. I've put most of this away for the spring / summer, and I'm going to have to put it all on again for the next month. It's just getting light out at 7:00, and now it'll be dark until 8.

    Tuesday was nice. It was sunny and I wore shorts biking.

  • (cs) in reply to themagni
    themagni:
    KattMan:
    Code Slave:
    The key words are ... ... "a gigantic, old, undocumented Access application"

    I'd have made him go through the application manually my self as well. Because gosh darn it... as sure as 99% of the fields are in the form [.]date[.] you can bet that somewhere there's a field that's txtBirthDay instead of txtBirthDate.

    "Sure, use the script... but you still gotta manually touch EVERY date field. Schnell!!!!"

    Actually maybe not. Considering this only affects dates that were saved and treated as dates you didn't have to worry about the field name itself. In an access application, forms are tied to a database table. So you read in a form, find the table it is attached to, scan the table for date fields read the mappings to find the form fields it is assigned to and you update. This is one of the things that Access made easy simply because of the strong coupling of it's UI with the data.

    That might work, unless the dates are stored internally with strings, then parsed out with internationalized formatting based on the XML configuration file.

    In that case, hopefully you would just have to update the XML file and you are done. Based off of the plan put forth by the PHB though, I doubt it, and it would be time to cancel that date with Hotlips and get back to work.

  • Dave C. (unregistered) in reply to DSTMan
    DSTMan:
    Also, I read somewhere recently that some jetfighters systems died when crossing the international date line.

    Yep, a major WTF. Navigation software for the F22 Raptors crashed when the longitude went from -180.0 to 180.0. See http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=2590456&C=america.

  • oldami (unregistered) in reply to themagni

    Actually, it was a whole squadron of shiny new F22 Raptors on their way to a base in Japan. The nav systems all crashed. They had to visually follow the refueling tanker back to the US. Rather embarrising for a new multi million dollar jet. Some ones head should roll for this.

    CAPTCHA: cognac...no thanks, I prefer Scotch.

  • Zivi (unregistered)

    I'm kinda jealous of that guy. He gets to work with computers, I have to work with real people every day. Well, only four more months to go...

  • (cs) in reply to Max
    Max:
    noehch:
    But, the worst possible effect: you're off an hour for 3 weeks.

    Unless your missile tracking systems try and lead the target, and accidentally lead an hour ahead (or behind), missing wildly.

    CAPTCHA: poindexter (who, me?)

    what are those missiles doing using local time? is someone going to update the time zone every time they move into another one?

  • muttonchop (unregistered) in reply to Agamous Child
    Agamous Child:
    akatherder:
    ...The worst case is that half of it completes, the other half does something destructive, and the third half breaks the space time continuum along with all known knowledge of fractions.

    We all prefer to automate things, but it's not without it's own risks.

    ARrrghh... That's three halfs... and two posts.

    Whoosh!

  • Drocket (unregistered) in reply to jessica
    jessica:
    So, the D stands for Daylight. Daylight is beneficial to everyone because they have to use less energy to create artificial light. Waking up an hour earlier and going to bed an hour earlier for part of the year means you save on candles/oil/whatever energy source.

    It's completely outdated now as we use artificial light during the day since we're not all farmers, but how can you not understand the concept?

    I understand the concept: I just don't understand what's so difficult about going to bed an hour earlier without having to screw around with the clock for everyone. Is there some sort of law that farmers have to go to bed at exactly 10PM, and the only way to get them in bed earlier/later is to change time for everyone?

  • BananaMan (unregistered) in reply to sjs
    sjs:
    Clearly you don't live an area where DST is needed. Without DST it would get light at 10-11am here in the winter and dark at about 3-4pm. Screw that!

    With or without DST you're going to have daylight at the same time in winter, because DST wont be in affect. You're in standard time in winter.

  • (cs)

    What I really don't understand is how DST got associated with dachshunds. I thought the ad linking was smarter than that. Regretfully I can't attribute that to "The Real WTF"

  • Pegasus (unregistered) in reply to akatherder
    akatherder:
    We all prefer to automate things, but it's not without it's own risks.

    You have heard of that thing call the 'test'. For the uninitiated it is a process used on a non-production system to verify your assumptions regarding how your application will work on a clone of the environment it will work in.

    The whole purpose of computing is to automate things that people do manually. Managing the risk, by test based development and various testing paradigms is what you should be doing as a developer. Ideally mitigating that risk would also mean having a rollback plan in the event your tests were incomplete (e.g. backup the database before doing the installation).

    Captcha - wigwam --- the desired replacement for my cubicle (802.11G and VPN connection and I would be good to go).

  • steve (unregistered) in reply to AssimilatedByBorg
    AssimilatedByBorg:
    (Yes, I could bike in the dark with appropriate lights. Yes, I'm a pansy-ass.)

    Why didn't you just say that and save the other useless typing? ;)

  • (cs) in reply to Pegasus
    Pegasus:
    akatherder:
    We all prefer to automate things, but it's not without it's own risks.

    You have heard of that thing call the 'test'. For the uninitiated it is a process used on a non-production system to verify your assumptions regarding how your application will work on a clone of the environment it will work in.

    The whole purpose of computing is to automate things that people do manually. Managing the risk, by test based development and various testing paradigms is what you should be doing as a developer. Ideally mitigating that risk would also mean having a rollback plan in the event your tests were incomplete (e.g. backup the database before doing the installation).

    Ok, give me access to one of the systems you work on. Then you plan a change and you can test for AS LONG AS YOU WANT. Somehow I bet your change just won't work when you try it for real :)

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