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Admin
TRWTF really is the fact that there's nothing out of the ordinary here, and we all live in a fantasy world where the mighty lords of finance are smart enough to tie their own shoelaces as well as run multi million dollar investment accounts - which makes this sort of story surprising.
Admin
It's not excel. It's the abusers of excel.
If you want to keep track of something simple, go ahead, and have fun.
If you want to store your entire business operation, you're an idiot, and you should be fired.
Admin
I'm not doing hand waving or theorectical talk here Dirk. I'm speaking from direct experience with having broken Access programs locking up ENTIRE tables they connect to and I'VE GOT THE ERROR LOGS FROM DATABASE CONNECTIONS TIMING OUT TO PROVE IT!
Admin
np: Alias & Ehren - Most Important Things (Lillian)
Admin
Admin
The biggest WFT of all this is that investment brokers, analysits and their ilk make huge fortunes from investment advice that is essentilly random. Lesson: buy index funds...or become a stock broker or hedge fund manager.
Admin
Admin
Sure...that's the rule if you're in elementary school. We big kids know that he/she/they can only be subjects (including predicate subjects), while him/her/them can only be objects.
So "the rule" really is that "who" should be the subject of a sentence or clause, while "whom" should be the object.
Admin
That's scary. Don't tell me you were reading about this chip on HP or TekScopes Yahoo group, or I'll swear you're my alter ego I was unaware of ;)
Cheers, kuba
Admin
Only in a gorramn Microsoft product would you have to use a VB macro in order to multiply a number by 0.08.
I would say this is TRWTF but the truth is, for three straight months in the spring of 2007 my job was writing and organizing gigantic Excel spreadsheets, and this is completely normal.
Admin
"Oh, it was on the report that way for the last 15 years. Well obiviously thats because you didn't notice it sooner."
Admin
Hmmm.... who is that? (that is he, that is she, that is they, that is I....) maybe that should be.... Whom is that? (that is him, that is he, that is them, that is me)
Is it who? (It is I, it is he, it is she, it is they) It is whom? (it is me, it is him, it is her, it is them)
Not sure those rules are quite so cut and dry....
Admin
Reminds me of a peson who I once worked with who created a 'Glossary' of everything he came across on the project.
He was asked to give a presentation on his wonderful glossary (and he did).
Understandably, the glossary had eveolved from a simple text file where he kept answers to little odds and ends. His justification, however (among others) for using a text file was the "Quick and easy way it is to search for an entry by title or content using 'Ctrl-F' in notepad..."
Got me thinking - is google's Search engine notepad?
(For the benefit of those of you who are obviously incapable of recognising whether someone is serious or not...The line starting 'Got me Thinking' is NOT SERIOUS....)
Admin
Admin
Then you're doing something else wrong. Access [configured correctly] doesn't exclusively lock tables when connecting to a [configured correctly] SQL Server, and the suggestion that it does it comical. Maybe it's time to look for a new career?
Admin
could you guys tell me whats wrong with using excel? Why is Access better than Excel in this case? If I would be chosing between Excel and Access I would go to using Access only when I have a lot of data. Calculating something like dividend yields and bond yields really doesnt need a lot of data. You can lock cells and formulas in Excel, you can create forms etc. Additionally calculations are really something very simple and easy, and using Excel even gives the result a certain openness. Else you have a black box which just spits some figures and no one has any clue how it's calculated. That someone didn't notice the bug in three years time is a real WTF, people analyzing the markets tend to know quite well the bond yields and dividend yields. What were the analysts doing for the rest of the day? (and if you would be working on the financial sector you would say that relying only on dividend and bond yields is a really big WTF). The biggest problem with Excel is that its too easy to create spreadsheets and people who really can't use it are creating spreadsheets from hell by recording macros etc.
Admin
Go on, let it all out...
Admin
On spreadsheets (in general):
As a story goes, a spreadsheet is shown to a "computer guy" at a dinner party, and asked to comment on it (presumably its accuracy or some such). He replied after observing the hard copy printout: "Well, the printer was working well that day!". When asked to elaborate further, he explained that that was all he could tell, not knowing anything about the numbers, or the formulas (which aren't listed!).
On calculators: Back in the day when computers were "new" (read 1940's), they were checked by people who were called "computers" (go look in a 1930's dictionary!). The problem was that these calculator jockeys were all used to dollars and cents, and only carried things out to two decimal places. This did not bode well for calculations that requires some scientific precision (at least 3 decimals, and floating point at that). Fast forward to today's world where lame brain people attempt to use "real" numbers for precise dollars and cents, and wonder why things don't balance out (been there, done that!). It isn't a pretty sight!
Admin
It's a beautiful story (although the pdf file needs proofreading).
It reminds me of Bruce Bueno de Mesquita. Also of some interactions between the White House and CIA.
Captcha: luctus - Yes, I wish luck to us, too!
Admin
You think I'm incompetent but I'm not. The Access program that causes me so much grief ISN'T MAINTAINED OR CONTROLLED BY ME! I would've dumped this monstrosity long ago. Think hard before you assume next time.
Addendum (2008-12-02 17:34): I just wanted to point out that I already reccomended he attempt to configure Access to use record-level locking but this was to no avail.
Admin
Awww...you're prob'ly gonna tell me I can't say "guzinta" or "takeaway" when I'm cypherin'!
Admin
The moment I read that it took only 1 month to develop and go live, I knew it'd be a disaster. Given the importance and scope of this project, it would take longer than that just for him to get the requirements ironed out. Testing? I doubt there was any. Then again, "we'll test when we go live" seems to be the mantra in financial services companies.
Admin
Yeah, a lot of the "OMG WTF!!?!!!111" kiddies here think that way. They tend to forget that in some situations, an Access front end paired with a SQL Server backend can robustly meet the needs of a given business unit.
Not to mention that it's easier to get buy-in when you choose to use more commonly known and familiar technologies. Tell management you want to use C# and you're a weirdo. Tell them you'll do it in Access and suddenly you're a guru. Not saying it's right, but that's how it is.
Admin
My thoughts exactly. Glad someone beat me to recommending this :)
Admin
??? What planet are you from?
"Access will open an exclusive lock to any table that it connects to." Since when does Access put a table level lock on linked SQL Server tables? I know S.S. is pessimistic prior to 2005 IIRC, but that's a separate issue.
"and really doesn't support any more than one user at all really. " Huh? I've come across plenty of Access front ends chugging away all day with up to 10 concurrent users in there. Not a problem. For small departments where a small team of known size will use the front end this is not a problem.
Admin
IIRC you can set a datasheet or a bound control to use table level locking, but that's not the default. Nor is it a sane thing to do in most situations. However, even then it's not a shortfall of Access. It's up to the developer whether he wants table level locking or not.
Move along.
Admin
Wait, so you yourself admit that it's misconfigured, yet continue to blame Access as inherently faulty? Huh?
Admin
...and then run it in parallel for a few weeks? Months, even.
Kinda stupid to rely on an unmaintained and unsupported program (the Excel spreadsheet -- yes, it's a program -- no, don't get me started) to make money.
Admin
Conversation I once had:
Boss: The Research manager is complaining you want to rewrite this spreadsheet as a program.
Me: Yes, the current version is very hard to extend and maintain.
Boss: Resarch feels they won't have adaquate control if you do that, so don't
Me: But I can make it easier for them to update.
Boss: I said don't do it.
end of conversation.
Admin
I work for a company, www.trackvia.com, that is great for creating an online database that will address all these issues with features such as change tracking, user permissions, and numerous sharing options including distribution schedules that send out reports automatically.
In fact, this story made me think of our current "data blunder" contest that you can win a free flipcam through. Mark you may want to submit your story at http://www.trackvia.com/data-blunder-contest.htm
Admin
Not to mention that it's easier to get buy-in when you choose to use more commonly known and familiar technologies. Tell management you want to use C# and you're a weirdo. Tell them you'll do it in Access and suddenly you're a guru. Not saying it's right, but that's how it is.
Tell them you will do it in "Professional Business Access" and do it in C#. They will not know the difference.
Admin
Admin
I'm currently working on a new version of an online shop that's supposed to go live in a few days. We got the product database (as SQL dump) from the previous developer, only to find that the data is severely messed up. How they've been selling the right products for years using that database is a miracle in itself.
The official internal company database that we got on request instead is, you guess correctly, an Excel spreadsheet. Only it's not used as a spreadsheet with, you know, columns and one row per product and so forth, but more like a (glorified? worse?) word processor/grid layout system, with each products data inconsistently taking multiple rows, "category headlines" at random places etc. It's so inconsistent it's not even VB-scriptable.
So a poor soul is going through the hundreds of rows one at a time now, trying to end up with a correct database. Guess we'll have to charge more...
Captcha: DIEEXCELDIE!
Admin
If the company had been operating without any kind of technical staff (and we're talking about a small bank, so it had), there really was no other choice but to use a spreadsheet program. It's the only kind of programming tool you can even consider putting in the hands of end-users.
With that in mind, the real real WTFs are (1) using one spreadsheet rather than several (2) employees who didn't particularly care what other employees were up to.
Admin
"Debians"? I always suspected that Linux is gonna try to enslave us...
Admin
Because it is not a robust solution. Access is brittle and prone to odd behavior. If you are going to use a SQL database anyway, just write an application. Use Click-Once to get some free update action.
Admin
I've had that discussion before. Luckily for me it didn't end there. I told the boss(es) that I wasn't going to support something like that and if they wanted new features they could go without or let me rewrite it. I got to rewrite it and everyone was much happier with the end result.
Doesn't always turn out that way, but sometimes it turns out good :)
Admin
Admin
When I was back home for a few months between college and graduate school, my cousin talked me into taking a temporary job at the local branch of a large multinational consulting company. We were called "data analysts" but were really doing data entry. After 1 week I learned 1) that I REALLY REALLY can't stand desk jobs and 2) what everybody's saying here, that Excel is not meant to handle large databases.
They were working on the year's compensation and benefits report for several hundred client companies. The clients would fill out these forms on their employees' salary and bennies and send them back. Each type of job had its own code. The big problem was that they had switched over the system of job codes (changed some and added new ones) since the previous year. There were some spreadsheets of how to convert the old ones to the new ones but they weren't all in the same place and some of the lists didn't match...argggh.
Admin
I had one like this. We automated the 'book' which calculated amongst other things, how many horsepower it took to run wood waste on conveyor belts at sawmills. They complained we had screwed it up, but when I checked it turned out their 'book' of formulas was wrong. They had the lowest horsepower for horizontal belts and higher horsepower for belts carrying loads up (right) and for belts carrying loads down (wrong). They decided to leave things as is although I offered to fix it!
Admin
http://www.google.com/search?q=database+vs+spreadsheet
Admin
Until the manager has his contact down in Corporate IT look at your solution. Why? Because he wants the opinion of someone he's known longer and trusts.
Then you're f*cked.
And if you have a committee approving software solutions then good luck getting that switcharoo by them.
Nevertheless, it's worth a shot.
"Why is the file a .exe and not a .mdb?" "I'm the tech guy. Shutup and double click it."
Admin
Like everyone else here, I've implemented Access calculations, and had to explain to the client why the results were different from the Excel calculations.
So, you tell me: Access is observably better than Excel for this kind of application, but why is it so?
Admin
It scares me when great searches like that yield some sketchy sources. Just look at the domain names that come up first. Aside from garbage industry business rags, there must be some great presentations on the topics. Sad.
Admin
Admin
It's amazing what sorts of ways people find to (ab)use spreadsheets.
The real problem with spreadsheets is that one person will create it to keep track of a number of records without any regard for the fact that someone else might also use/share it in th future.
But then someone else needs to use the same spreadsheet: enter inconsistency. Maybe you can handle it with 2-3 people. But what happens when (like a client that we are working on a new system for) you have 30 people all sending you copies of the same spreadsheet which you have to merge into a master spreadsheet? This thing that save you time before not takes up all of your time. This client of ours has a person that spends 50% of their working hours merging all of these spreadsheets back together.
We're working on a way to coherent transform all of these spreadsheets (plus a really f*cked up database design from Paradox, which we have to bring data over from) into something logical and usable whose maintenance doesn't grow exponentially with the number of employees. It is an uphill battle to say the least.
Anyone who thinks that the problem is only the fault of the "developers" of the spreadsheet is a nitwit that doesn't understand human nature. The problem is that spreadsheets inherently let people make stupid mistakes because they aren't thinking about what they are doing. Past that, spreadsheets do not enforce any sort of data integrity, so even someone who is normally carefully can easily input string data in a field that is assumed to be integers.
Remember, "If there's more than one possible outcome of a job or task, and one of those outcomes will result in disaster or an undesirable consequence, then somebody will do it that way"
Admin
In my experience, a lot of financial calculations are just wrong.
I have seen wrong yield calculations being used in production (I've written some), I have seen wrong processes put in place (ie: action when number goes up being the wrong one), I have seen incorrect algorithms used (option priced with the wrong formulas), or bad data being fed to algorithm ("just use 0.5 for delta, it works well"). I have seen meaningless results (monte-carlo 99.9% VaR with input beeing +- 25%), or just plain wrong algorithm ("well, that is NOT a vanilla option"), or a badly designed pricing model ("your model have the assumption that interest rates are not correlated to inflation").
I have seen currency errors that went unnoticed!
Admin
Ok, so looks like when they create the next version of G.E.S, it'll be called 'G.U.E.S.S'?
Hooray! finally some clarity at last!!!
Admin
The Real WTF of that story are the many typos. (Debians instead of Denebians, to name just one)
Admin
Spreadsheets are frequently the 'golden hammer' in the 'golden hammer anti-pattern'. For those of you not familiar with anti-patterns, they are just like 'patterns and practices', but instead of being the recipe for success, they are recipes for disaster.
The golden hammer is a classic, it's where someone tries to use the same solution to every problem. I think it was named after the DC Comics hero 'Thor' who had a golden mallet that amazing was the way he solved almost every problem that came along.
I've seen so many spreadsheets used as databases, design tools, booking systems etc over the years. Quite often middle-managers with some Excel skills will decide to circumvent the whole development process and do this themselves. This would be fine if IT didn't later get involved, and be forced to 'support' these things.