• (cs) in reply to D-Coder
    D-Coder:
    The Nerve:
    As bad as this sounds, nothing beats the thrill of performing without a net.
    I prefer performing without .NET.

    Same here, especially considering all the hoops you have to jump through to get decent performance out of managed code...

  • by (unregistered)
    Remy Martin:
    He frowned and the screen and waited a few minutes longer before adding, "I hope it isn't hung."

    Just then, the Australian support manager resigned. On her exit interview, she would write: "Tired of hearing men talking about how well-endowed one another are."

  • sheldon (unregistered) in reply to MadX
    MadX:
    I wonder if there are any WTFs about too many backups.
    There was a story here that went something like this: a guy had a server, then he got a second server to back up the first server daily. So the second server stored a week of backups. Then he had a third server which backed up the second server daily and stored a week of those backups. I.e. the entire week of backups was replicated on the third server every day, so by now each file was backed up 7*7 = 49 times. I couldn't find the article itself, but maybe someone else remembers.
  • MyDick Admin (unregistered) in reply to by
    by:
    Remy Martin:
    He frowned and the screen and waited a few minutes longer before adding, "I hope it isn't hung."

    Just then, the Australian support manager resigned. On her exit interview, she would write: "Tired of hearing men talking about how well-endowed one another are."

    Well then she would definitely hate working at this place.

  • sheldon (unregistered) in reply to pitchingchris
    pitchingchris:
    click on gigabytes
    Could someone please explain what do the unicorns mean?
  • Unicorn Wrangler (unregistered) in reply to sheldon
    sheldon:
    pitchingchris:
    click on gigabytes
    Could someone please explain what do the unicorns mean?
    You mean the unicorns on this website? They mean that you need a better ad-blocker. Try Firefox with the AdBlock Plus addin, that's what I use and I've never seen a single ad on this website.

    As for the unicorns in people's code... well, that's another story for another day.

  • by (unregistered) in reply to sheldon
    sheldon:
    pitchingchris:
    click on gigabytes
    Could someone please explain what do the unicorns mean?

    Unicorns are horny horses.

  • Bert Glanstron (unregistered)

    Dear REMY MARTIN,

    In case you can’t tell, this is a grown-up place. The fact that you insist on including unicorns and defiled pictures of James T. Kirk and Data clearly shows that you’re too young and too stupid to be posting to thedailywtf.com.

    Go away and grow up.

    Sincerely, Bert Glanstron

  • BAH (unregistered) in reply to HAL

    Dave's not here.

  • ebuck (unregistered) in reply to The Nerve

    Perhaps you could automate the manual failure.

  • The Druid of Oz (unregistered) in reply to DaveK
    DaveK:
    # rm -r oldFilesToDelete /*
    (assuming sufficient privs, of course)
    You're root FFS! You have privs. If you don't instinctively recognize that little '#' you better go running to Mommy next time you see one on your computer.

    Oh BTW they say Unix isn't friendly. With that command you're likely to get a lot of cryptic error messages. But you can eliminate them with the "friendly" option:

    # rm -rf oldFilesToDelete /*
  • sino (unregistered) in reply to Grammar Nazi
    Grammar Nazi:
    Remy Porter:
    I recommend paying attention to punctuation and grammar in the future. Those symbols actually convey some semantic information about the contents of the sentence and their relationship to the others.

    Funny you should mention it. I was...

    Remy Porter:
    Stunned by the immensity of his screw up, Dave stared at the screen, like it was the oncoming headlamps of a semi.

    Note: the comma in red is invalid.

    But perfectly grokkable, and adds a breath that emphasizes the hilarity of the phrase. Perhaps you would prefer an emdash? Or is there a more arcane and precise horizontal line better suited to the width required by the pause?

  • sino (unregistered) in reply to Anon

    Welcome to the internet. Try out your back button some time. I have no problem navigating the comments. Perhaps you should upgrade your software.

  • ideo (unregistered) in reply to Anon

    I bet you prefer fully denormalized table storage, too, don'cha?

  • (cs) in reply to Remy Porter
    Remy Porter:
    Well, in all fairness, Oracle does also have a product called Enterprise Manager.
    Yes, but they don't have one called SQL Server 2000.
  • (cs) in reply to Remy Porter
    Remy Porter:
    Well, in all fairness, Oracle does also have a product called Enterprise Manager.
    Yes, but they don't have one called SQL Server 2000.
  • wtf (unregistered) in reply to Darth Database
    Darth Database:

    I have backed up the database. Pray I don't back it up any further.

    Keep trying. One day it'll be funny, really.

  • Mikkel (unregistered) in reply to HAL

    Haha, good call :-)

  • Ouch! (unregistered) in reply to wtf
    wtf:
    Keep trying. One day it'll be funny, really.
    I have repeated the lame joke. Pray I don't repeat it any further.
  • coljac (unregistered)

    This one isn't funny. Nobody who has ever felt that cold, cold feeling in the pit of their stomach at the realisation that a major data screwup has just occurred could have a chuckle at this story.

  • Mythran (unregistered) in reply to The Nerve
    The Nerve:
    As bad as this sounds, nothing beats the thrill of performing without a net.

    The thrill is lost the moment you are performing without a net and you realize, this time you should have performed with the net...

  • WiredEarp (unregistered) in reply to HAL

    Best first quote ever!

  • WiredEarp (unregistered) in reply to HAL

    Maybe I mean best featured post ever ;-(

    captcha of damnum, appropriate...

  • Herby (unregistered) in reply to JB
    JB:
    TRWTF is that Dave was replaced by the company. He should have had a backup plan like blaming John for the cock up.
    There is a BOFH thing here somewhere.

    In fact this whole episode is a BOFH story, it is just that this had a different ending than the typical BOFH one!

  • HAL (unregistered) in reply to HAL

    "Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye"

  • Valczir (unregistered) in reply to Sam
    Sam:
    [snip] TRWTF is who is Phil?!

    The Prince of Insufficient Light, Ruler of Heck.

    SARUMANATEE:
    Arancaytar:
    When deleting something takes even a tiny bit longer than you expect, that means you are deleting more than you expected. CTRL-C!

    Nononono. Wait for it to finish then CTRL-Z. Cooler heads prevail.

    Why in the world would you want to suspend the command? Especially after it's finished - that's just ... I don't think that does anything.

    I agree with the other comments about transactions. BEGIN ... DELETE ... SELECT ... /* OH, ROOT, WHAT HAVE I DONE?! */ ROLLBACK. It's like an undo comma-

    OH, You meant ctrl-z as UNDO! Got it. Ctrl+z hasn't been undo for me for a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time. Either ctrl+_ or ESC then u or rollback. Those are my main undo commands, these days. Ctrl+z means pause.

  • Xythar (unregistered)

    This is why every single change you make to a production database should be wrapped in a BEGIN TRANSACTION/ROLLBACK block until you've run it once and confirmed it is doing exactly what it is supposed to. No exceptions.

  • DonaldK (unregistered) in reply to HAL
    HAL:
    "...just what do you think you're doing, Dave?"

    Real men don't drink pink drinks ... (as from the Souff Effrikan ad for Windhoek Lager).

  • DonaldK (unregistered) in reply to DonaldK
    DonaldK:
    HAL:
    "...just what do you think you're doing, Dave?"

    Real men don't drink pink drinks ... (as from the Souff Effrikan ad for Windhoek Lager).

    Yeah OK I know Hal doesn't drink.

    Nothing is original any longer.

  • Damien (unregistered) in reply to uuang
    uuang:
    hoodaticus:
    rob:
    ...as he pulled the application up and logged into the test database

    TRWTF is that there was gigabytes of customer's live data in the test database.

    I think the opposite is true. Why not test on real data? Plus, they might have been able to restore from test...

    Wait, whats the opposite of TRWTF being that the test database had several gigs of live data in it?

    The Production database only containing several gigs of test data?

  • Ben (unregistered)

    Reminds me of the colleague who did an UPDATE on a production database, and forgot to include the WHERE clause...

  • (cs) in reply to one space to many
    one space to many:
    I remeber a friend of mine doing something similar: 
    someone@some-computer:~/aVeryImportenetDir# rm -r oldFilesToDelete/ *

    I recall doing something similar once:

    rm -r /lib

    Instead of

    rm -r lib

    Oops. As a result, 'Little Robby Libs' is what they call me to this day. Good thing it was a test server!

  • m (unregistered) in reply to HAL

    And this, dear people, is why a scriptable command-line interface is sometimes preferred over point-and-click.

  • jeremy (unregistered) in reply to coljac
    coljac:
    This one isn't funny. Nobody who has ever felt that cold, cold feeling in the pit of their stomach at the realisation that a major data screwup has just occurred could have a chuckle at this story.

    ELY (n.) The first, tiniest inkling you get that something, somewhere, has gone terribly wrong.

    http://folk.uio.no/alied/TMoL.html

  • (cs) in reply to The Druid of Oz
    The Druid of Oz:
    Oh BTW they say Unix isn't friendly.
    Nonsense, Unix is user-friendly. It's just very selective about who its friends are.

    (Not my quote.)

  • Kirk (unregistered)

    lol did you see the image...

  • (cs) in reply to The Druid of Oz
    The Druid of Oz:
    DaveK:
    # rm -r oldFilesToDelete /*
    (assuming sufficient privs, of course)
    You're root FFS! You have privs. If you don't instinctively recognize that little '#'
    Sure I recognize it. It's the final char of $PS1, which can be set to anything by anybody. It doesn't actually prove a thing about your UID.
    The Druid of Oz:
    you better go running to Mommy next time you see one on your computer.
    Don't know what kind of websites you've been hanging round, but I don't "see Mommys" on my computer!
    The Druid of Oz:
    Oh BTW they say Unix isn't friendly. With that command you're likely to get a lot of cryptic error messages. But you can eliminate them with the "friendly" option: 
    # rm -rf oldFilesToDelete /*
    Yes, but that's a lot less probable typo than getting a space in the wrong place, which is why I didn't suggest it.
  • (cs) in reply to Mason Wheeler
    Mason Wheeler:
    D-Coder:
    The Nerve:
    As bad as this sounds, nothing beats the thrill of performing without a net.
    I prefer performing without .NET.

    Same here, especially considering all the hoops you have to jump through to get decent performance out of managed code...

    I think I can speak for everyone here when I say we're all looking forward to the day we see some of your code on this site.

  • Zack Brown (unregistered) in reply to HAL

    I can't let you do that, Dave.

  • (cs)

    Actual event at a former company: DBA was dinking around in the production database.

    update UserTable
set EmailAddress = '[email protected]'
--where UserId = 347

__________________

(15347 rows updated)

    "... That doesn't seem right."

    /headdesk

    Fortunately, we had enough internal controls in place that he was able to recover everything within a couple of hours.

  • Jimmy Jones (unregistered) in reply to m
    m:
    And *this*, dear people, is why a scriptable command-line interface is sometimes preferred over point-and-click.

    Came here to say this.

    They really have a thing called "SQL Server Enterprise Manager" which lets you click on a database and press the 'delete' key? ...with no 'undo' and without a large "Are you really really sure?" dialog, including captcha?

    (And yes, the 'delete' part of the task should have been in the same script as the 'rebuild' part).

  • Grammar Nazi (unregistered) in reply to sino
    sino:
    Grammar Nazi:
    Remy Porter:
    I recommend paying attention to punctuation and grammar in the future. Those symbols actually convey some semantic information about the contents of the sentence and their relationship to the others.

    Funny you should mention it. I was...

    Remy Porter:
    Stunned by the immensity of his screw up, Dave stared at the screen, like it was the oncoming headlamps of a semi.

    Note: the comma in red is invalid.

    But perfectly grokkable, and adds a breath that emphasizes the hilarity of the phrase. Perhaps you would prefer an emdash? Or is there a more arcane and precise horizontal line better suited to the width required by the pause?

    No mark of punctuation in any context makes sense here. I was just pointing out what an ass Remy is for berating someone and telling them they need to learn what punctuation is while he clearly has problems understanding it himself.

  • Bill's kid (unregistered) in reply to wtf
    wtf:
    Darth Database:

    I have backed up the database. Pray I don't back it up any further.

    Keep trying. One day it'll be funny, really.

    Give him a break, it's his "joke" version of a hammer so everything looks like a comment version of a nail.

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to sino

    First I have to give a shit about your comment to care what it was replying to. In context it might be extremely insightful, out-of-context it might be random nonsense.

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to Anon

    Also, I assume you go through each comment checking the "reply to" to see if it's a reply to one of your own comments (which you've remembered the numeric code for). Yeah, that's really easy and fun too!

  • Ben4jammin (unregistered)

    I am always amazed at these "no backup" stories. At our shop, I have to do monthly test restores and document it. I have to make sure to do test restores of files and DBs, both local B2D and off-site B2D. AND it is the first thing discussed in my yearly reviews. In a related story, we have avoided more than one WTF because we have good backups. Like when the VP of IT (former SQL guy) forgot the WHERE clause in his delete statement and wiped a whole table (apparently a very important one) late at night. Next morning, no one was the wiser except him, me, and our services manager. And since he does our reviews, we aren't telling :)

  • ich (unregistered) in reply to Grunt
    Grunt:
    TRWTF is doing stuff like that interactively and auto-committing the transaction (or using a system without transactions in the first place).

    CAPTCHA: "persto" - Presto! Rolled that back for you.

    Escept that you can't roll back DDL, you drop a table and that's that - no rolling back there mate

  • ich (unregistered) in reply to Grunt
    Grunt:
    TRWTF is doing stuff like that interactively and auto-committing the transaction (or using a system without transactions in the first place).

    CAPTCHA: "persto" - Presto! Rolled that back for you.

    Escept that you can't roll back DDL, you drop a table and that's that - no rolling back there mate

  • MP(real) (unregistered) in reply to Don

    TRWTF is how many people make comments with "I assume <information given in story>" or "I assume <incorrect information - correct information given in story>"

    Don:
    ObiWayneKenobi:
    I would wager, sadly, that this is how the majority of "mission critical" systems operate. As always, the root cause is not the developer but incompetent management who have no idea of the right ways to do things.
    Well.. actually.. I find it's usually the management that ARE TOLD the right way to do things; but steadfastly deny that it's important, since "it never caused a problem before". Once upon a time I had a manager that loved reading 'Executive IT magazines' - you know, those ones written by people with MBA's and no IT knowledge whatsoever. Thick as a couple of planks when it came to IT, but it was the 90's and nobody cared so long as the manager could make Gantt charts. I had walked into his office the previous morning to discuss the budget for a disaster recovery cold site, since we were running 'mission critical' systems for our international business. 'No time today, come back tomorrow'

    So, with some quotes in hand and a few idea's on how we would keep data synchronized; I walked into the breach.

    'Sorry Donny, we'll have to pass on the DR Cold Site. Was reading an article last night about how it's a real white elephant, and we don't have the money right now for things that are not critical path'
    [Which critical path usually meant the CEO's new private jet]

    A few months later .. yeah it happened. Our systems died horribly. Seems I was supposed to advise on ways around this, and hey, why didn't we have a Cold Storage that could have been fired up in this case..

    I think he still works there; and still reads 'Executive IT Management' magazines.

    T(other)RWTF is that you didn't send an email prior to going to talk about it. CYA.

  • (cs) in reply to ich
    ich:
    Grunt:
    TRWTF is doing stuff like that interactively and auto-committing the transaction (or using a system without transactions in the first place).

    CAPTCHA: "persto" - Presto! Rolled that back for you.

    Escept that you can't roll back DDL, you drop a table and that's that - no rolling back there mate

    This is the 9,000th time this mistake has been posted here... The article clearly states that the database is SQL 2000. In SQL Server 2000, you can rollback DDL changes.

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