• (cs) in reply to EnterUserNameHere

    EnterUserNameHere:
    Anonymous:
    He should have used The Tool to generate The Report.  When will people ever learn and stop reinventing the wheel!


    Heh - If he'd used "The Tool" correctly, he'd have something to do during the receptionist's now free extra hour!

    Another WTF is that we're assuming the receptionist was female, or, well...

    Generally speaking, when a person is referred to as "she" or "[a|the] girl", it's reasonably safe to assume that said person is indeed female.

  • pantsophocles (unregistered) in reply to tinker
    Anonymous:
    He should have used The Tool to generate The Report.  When will people ever learn and stop reinventing the wheel!

    But we have a new improved version! We call it The Wheel...
  • (cs)
    Alex Papadimoulis:
    ...And to end on a bit of good news, Brandon was able to get the report retired and replaced by a script with less-than a single printed page of code.

    <font size="5">A</font>t least the bu$ine$$ con$ultant didn't have to step in to help out.  I'm sure his enterprisey solution would have required a few prototypes, six months of coding, a few days of testing, XML, Web 2.0, some digital cameras and a wooden table.
  • Ann Coulter (unregistered)

    Oh no, soon she will be replaced by a very small script!

  • Joe Black (unregistered) in reply to Kodi

    I am an Access programmer. Here is a slightly shorter version of the code:

    Public Sub RunAllQueries()
      Dim Query As QueryDef
     
      For Each Query In CurrentDb().QueryDefs   
        If Left$(Query.Name, 3) = "Run" Then Query.Execute
      Next
    End Sub

  • (cs)
    Alex Papadimoulis:

    he offered the poor receptionist girl a little relief in the form of a Macro

    I think there are some Chinese workers employed by Martha Stewert that would contest that clicking on Run001 through Run087 is hardly hard work.

    Dieter:

    Excuse me miss. Would you like to see my little Macro?

  • (cs) in reply to Joe Black
    Anonymous:

    I am an Access programmer. Here is a slightly shorter version of the code:

    Public Sub RunAllQueries()
      Dim Query As QueryDef
     
      For Each Query In CurrentDb().QueryDefs   
        If Left$(Query.Name, 3) = "Run" Then Query.Execute
      Next
    End Sub

    You are a brave man admitting any relation to VB and even more so VBA on this site!

    Anyway ... didn't you all forget about the magic...

    Docmd.SetWarnings  False

    Do you want poor Paula Bean to have to click on all of those messages?

    This post did contain certain measures of sarcasm...

  • (cs) in reply to rbriem
    rbriem:

    EnterUserNameHere:
    Anonymous:
    He should have used The Tool to generate The Report.  When will people ever learn and stop reinventing the wheel!


    Heh - If he'd used "The Tool" correctly, he'd have something to do during the receptionist's now free extra hour!

    Another WTF is that we're assuming the receptionist was female, or, well...

    Generally speaking, when a person is referred to as "she" or "[a|the] girl", it's reasonably safe to assume that said person is indeed female.



    Oh, please. We ALL know how Alex likes to obfuscate the identity of the parties involved. ;)
  • (cs) in reply to Bus Raker
    Bus Raker:
    Anonymous:

    TankerJoe:
    Senator Ted Stevens gave a similar explanation of how the Internet works as an argument against net
    neutrality. It's funny because he (Sen. Stevens) doesn't really seem to know what he is talking about.

    Ted Stevens is also infamous for being the Senator from Alaska that wanted to build a $50M bridge to a small island with a handful of inhabitants who, ultimately, didn't need or want the bridge.

    Try $231 M.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravina_Island_Bridge



    Too right, I had forgotten about the bridge.  From wikipedia:

    The Gravina Island Bridge is a proposed bridge to replace the ferry that currently connects Ketchikan, Alaska (population 8,000) to developable land on Gravina Island (population 50) ...

    ok so, $231,000,000 / 8050 = WTF?!?  Why noy just buy them each a boat?


  • (cs) in reply to EnterUserNameHere

    This sort of approach probably works better than telling her that her sweater looks nice and offering to get her a soda (damned Code Monkey won't go away....).

  • (cs) in reply to TankerJoe

    OMG.  This story is just exactly like the place where I'm currently working.

  • hk0 (unregistered) in reply to AgentConundrum

    Nice find in the MP3 clip. We got a lot of laughs listening to it.

    Towards the end he talks about how the DoD has a special network that they use that is seperate from the Internet. I think he means SIPRNET. Anyway, he claims they need to have a seperate network for national security reasons because messages get delayed in those pipes that everyone is just dumping into (sic).
    Little does he know that almost all of SIPRNET goes through the same physical "tubes" from end to end. It's just a giant VPN. It's seperate where they can afford to buy cheap fiber (and that isn't very often). Hell, messages going to overseas stations have to use the same oversea cables everyone else is using.

    I know for a fact US military in Korea use their awesome-fast subsidised DSL to get connectivity back into SIPRNET.

    captcha: random

  • anonymous (unregistered) in reply to pantsophocles
    Anonymous:
    Anonymous:
    He should have used The Tool to generate The Report.  When will people ever learn and stop reinventing the wheel!

    But we have a new improved version! We call it The Wheel...


    Bah, hamster whells are hardly new here.

    The real WTF is not that normal people create complex and conbulated task that are easy to automatize with code. Of course, normal people cant code the automatization himself!.

    The real WTF is programmers that DO boring, repeateated, convulated task that are easy to automatize.

    DRY!
  • Foone (unregistered)

    This kind of thing is a lot more common than most programmers would like to believe. I'm always amazed while helping friends with computery stuff how much simple repetitive bullshit they're willing to do for common tasks.
    I mean, it's a computer, silly. Why isn't it doing that for you?

    I guess I just can't understand non-programmers. Me, after doing something three times I start looking for a way to never have to do it again.

  • (cs) in reply to Foone
    Anonymous:

    I guess I just can't understand non-programmers. Me, after doing something three times I start looking for a way to never have to do it again.


    This is because in the field of computers, most things can be automated. But in real life, there are many repetitive tasks where tools can only help to make it easier. For example, every day you have to wash dishes; at least, you have to put them into the dishwasher. Normal people have more experience with repetitive tasks that cannot be automated (without enormous effort), so they use computers the same way.
  • (cs)
    Alex Papadimoulis:
    First! In case you're wondering about the stock photos, I have credits expiring soon at iStockphoto.

    I could find no "vote troll" button, so I'm sorry Alex, I have to abuse-report your post. First:ers should be shot on sight. I expect professionalism and neutrality from you, and hope you do the right thing and punish yourself severly.
  • (cs) in reply to Mikademus
    Mikademus:
    Alex Papadimoulis:
    First! In case you're wondering about the stock photos, I have credits expiring soon at iStockphoto.

    I could find no "vote troll" button, so I'm sorry Alex, I have to abuse-report your post. First:ers should be shot on sight. I expect professionalism and neutrality from you, and hope you do the right thing and punish yourself severly.


    Edit: it's gone now
  • ChiefCrazyTalk (unregistered)

    How much do you want to bet that those 87 queries could be replaced by a single query? I can see them now:

    Select LastName from Person

    Select FirstName from Person

    Select SSN from Person

    and so on...

  • (cs) in reply to ammoQ

    Alex, I think he was just joking.

    At least I hope he was. IMHO, it should be "Frist" and not "First". But if one little word offends the poster so, I would advise the poster to stay way clear of The Aristocrats.

  • (cs) in reply to Foone

    Anonymous:
    This kind of thing is a lot more common than most programmers would like to believe. I'm always amazed while helping friends with computery stuff how much simple repetitive bullshit they're willing to do for common tasks.
    I mean, it's a computer, silly. Why isn't it doing that for you?

    I guess I just can't understand non-programmers. Me, after doing something three times I start looking for a way to never have to do it again.

    Yeah - it's odd, what was Brandon thinking?  To me, report generation does not fall under the domain of the receptionist, unless you expect that Brandon also answers the telephone over-rings ( when the is receptionist is otherwise unavailable ).

    I understand that in a small company, the receptionist gets tasked with extra duties, but in my opinion, Brandon shoulda taken this one on himself. Why - because he coulda automated the whole process, and by-passed an additional layer of human intervention. If he's smart enough to create the helper script - he can eventually figure out how to automate it altogether.

    In my opinion - the WTF is the half-assed solution by Brandon.  It's helpful for the receptionist but he shoulda looked into it further.

  • (cs) in reply to olddog
    olddog:

    Anonymous:
    This kind of thing is a lot more common than most programmers would like to believe. I'm always amazed while helping friends with computery stuff how much simple repetitive bullshit they're willing to do for common tasks.
    I mean, it's a computer, silly. Why isn't it doing that for you?

    I guess I just can't understand non-programmers. Me, after doing something three times I start looking for a way to never have to do it again.

    Yeah - it's odd, what was Brandon thinking?  To me, report generation does not fall under the domain of the receptionist, unless you expect that Brandon also answers the telephone over-rings ( when the is receptionist is otherwise unavailable ).

    I understand that in a small company, the receptionist gets tasked with extra duties, but in my opinion, Brandon shoulda taken this one on himself. Why - because he coulda automated the whole process, and by-passed an additional layer of human intervention. If he's smart enough to create the helper script - he can eventually figure out how to automate it altogether.

    In my opinion - the WTF is the half-assed solution by Brandon.  It's helpful for the receptionist but he shoulda looked into it further.



    He was new at the company... it takes a lot of guts to go up to your boss and say "I can completely automate one of your processes" just out of the blue.

    Also, I can't quite tell, but it sounds like he DID eventually automate the whole thing. ("And to end on a bit of good news, Brandon was able to get the report retired and replaced by a script with less-than a single printed page of code.")
  • (cs) in reply to EvanED
    EvanED:
    olddog:

    Anonymous:
    This kind of thing is a lot more common than most programmers would like to believe. I'm always amazed while helping friends with computery stuff how much simple repetitive bullshit they're willing to do for common tasks.
    I mean, it's a computer, silly. Why isn't it doing that for you?

    I guess I just can't understand non-programmers. Me, after doing something three times I start looking for a way to never have to do it again.

    Yeah - it's odd, what was Brandon thinking?  To me, report generation does not fall under the domain of the receptionist, unless you expect that Brandon also answers the telephone over-rings ( when the is receptionist is otherwise unavailable ).

    I understand that in a small company, the receptionist gets tasked with extra duties, but in my opinion, Brandon shoulda taken this one on himself. Why - because he coulda automated the whole process, and by-passed an additional layer of human intervention. If he's smart enough to create the helper script - he can eventually figure out how to automate it altogether.

    In my opinion - the WTF is the half-assed solution by Brandon.  It's helpful for the receptionist but he shoulda looked into it further.



    He was new at the company... it takes a lot of guts to go up to your boss and say "I can completely automate one of your processes" just out of the blue.

    Also, I can't quite tell, but it sounds like he DID eventually automate the whole thing. ("And to end on a bit of good news, Brandon was able to get the report retired and replaced by a script with less-than a single printed page of code.")

    Well... Then I stand corrected. Brandon...give em hell.

  • (cs)

    This reminds me of some of the other interns I worked with this summer. Some of the simplest programs can absolutely blow non-programmer's minds.

    One guy (who claimed to be majoring in comp sci) had to take a 10000+ line text file with each line containing a longitude, latitude, name and a bunch of other stuff, convert it to a different format, and remove the duplicates. He actually told me he was going to do it by hand, so I wrote a little program to do it for him in about 10 seconds and he was amazed.

  • (cs) in reply to Ford351-4V

    Ford351-4V:
    Alex, I think he was just joking.

    At least I hope he was. IMHO, it should be "Frist" and not "First". But if one little word offends the poster so, I would advise the poster to stay way clear of The Aristocrats.

    Heh, yeah. Actually I posted that because I didn't want to have the discussion thrown off track with "so the WTF is, there are three 5's on the keyboard?" or "what's with the stock photography." 

    As far as "First!!," for the longest time, I never quite understood why people do "First!!" posts. Then, one day, I was on Slashdot and saw an article with ZERO comments. And if I had an account that had allowed me to write posts that started above -2, I probably would have scrambled to write a completely pointless comment that added ntohing to the story and was as valuable as "First!!!!" Dunno why, I just had that urge.

  • J.T. (unregistered) in reply to Anymoose
    Anonymous:
    Ford351-4V:
    This isn't really a WTF. You just don't understand the process. Senator Ted Stevens explained to me why Brandon's company did things this way. You see, their system is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck.

    It's a series of tubes.

    And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you double click your query, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by any other queries that put into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.


    Someone want to fill in the rest of us on the reference? I've never heard of Ted Stevens.


    There is an AMAZING tool called Google that will help you find out all about Ted "The Internet is a Series of Tubes" Stevens, Senator from Alaska.

    Captcha: Zork. I am being eaten by a grue... <more>
  • (cs) in reply to Alex Papadimoulis
    Alex Papadimoulis:

    Ford351-4V:
    Alex, I think he was just joking.

    At least I hope he was. IMHO, it should be "Frist" and not "First". But if one little word offends the poster so, I would advise the poster to stay way clear of The Aristocrats.

    Heh, yeah. Actually I posted that because I didn't want to have the discussion thrown off track with "so the WTF is, there are three 5's on the keyboard?" or "what's with the stock photography." 

    As far as "First!!," for the longest time, I never quite understood why people do "First!!" posts. Then, one day, I was on Slashdot and saw an article with ZERO comments. And if I had an account that had allowed me to write posts that started above -2, I probably would have scrambled to write a completely pointless comment that added ntohing to the story and was as valuable as "First!!!!" Dunno why, I just had that urge.


    Heh, yeah it was a joke, but I gotta tell you, as irony goes, this one felt quite satifactory :P


    PS. Props for mentioning "The Aristocrats"
  • anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Mikademus

    The true WTF is that...I mean, the real wtf is...oh dear I've gone cross-eyed.

  • bwobbones (unregistered) in reply to Kodi

    It's that he used VB for the script instead of perl!

  • Profpylons (unregistered) in reply to slurpy
    slurpy wrote the following post at 07-21-2006 3:30 PM:
    [image] Coincoin:
    I'm surprised there is no comment involving a "wooden table" and a "camera" yet.

    Put the secretary on a wooden table, have her pose (preferably on the ashes of a printout of the replaced system), take your camera, ...


    <font face="Verdana">...make sure she's wearing a ninja costume and 3 inch heals...
    </font>
  • Anonymous Coward (unregistered) in reply to Rank Amateur

    Cute bedtime story, but I don't really see the WTF here either.

    What were the 87 different queries doing, and how were they so easily replaced by the '1 page of [l33t] code'? Incidentally I'd be surprised if the 1 page is anything other than complete rubbish.

    PS Keep it on topic as well so this place doesn't degenerate into another /.

  • (cs) in reply to Profpylons
    Profpylons:
    <FONT face=Verdana>...make sure she's wearing a ninja costume and 3 inch heals...</FONT>

    Those 3-inch heels don't heal, they wound...

  • (cs)

    Afterall, as I continue to remind myself whenever I am having a struggle with my computer, "Computers are designed to make our life easier"

     

    The great thing about computers is that they do EXACTLY what you ask them.

    The trouble with computers is that they do EXACTLY what you ask them!

  • Unklegwar (unregistered) in reply to R.Flowers


    R.Flowers:
    Brandon just deprived the receptionist of an hour of "me" time.

    I wonder, when developers come across such situations, how do they resist bursting out in laughter? Or do they even bother to resist? Personally, I have almost gotten into trouble a couple of times after some pretty bone-headed procedures were described to me.


    But now she's indebted to him. "My Hero", she swoons. He'll have her digits in no time. (that's phone number, not fingers!)

  • anonymous (unregistered) in reply to ParkinT
    ParkinT:

    Afterall, as I continue to remind myself whenever I am having a struggle with my computer, "Computers are designed to make our life easier"

    The great thing about computers is that they do EXACTLY what you ask them.
    The trouble with computers is that they do EXACTLY what you ask them!

    Obviusly you aren't not a Windows user.
  • Unklegwar (unregistered) in reply to Stan Rogers
    Stan Rogers:
    This sort of approach probably works better than telling her that her sweater looks nice and offering to get her a soda (damned Code Monkey won't go away....).


    Just don't mix that all up and compliment her on her Sweater Monkeys....

  • Ogsy (unregistered) in reply to AgentConundrum

    <font face="Verdana">Who is this organisation "Douche Telecom" he's talking about?</font>

  • (cs)
    Anonymous:
    TankerJoe:
    Senator Ted Stevens gave a similar explanation of how the Internet works as an argument against net
    neutrality. It's funny because he (Sen. Stevens) doesn't really seem to know what he is talking about.


    If by "funny" you mean "big biz getting preferential treatment while the little guy and the consumer get screwed because of congressmen and senators who don't know their @$$ from their elbow", then yes, that's funny.



    Funny thing is, that is almost exactly what I meant.  Just add "taxpayer" to the getting-screwed list and you will have nailed it.
  • Anon Coward (unregistered) in reply to cheesy

    cheesy:
    This reminds me of some of the other interns I worked with this summer. Some of the simplest programs can absolutely blow non-programmer's minds. One guy (who claimed to be majoring in comp sci) had to take a 10000+ line text file with each line containing a longitude, latitude, name and a bunch of other stuff, convert it to a different format, and remove the duplicates. He actually told me he was going to do it by hand, so I wrote a little program to do it for him in about 10 seconds and he was amazed.

     

    What did you write your program in?  Java, C++, C#?  Surely it wasn't VBA, Excel or Access, was it?

    Captcha: enterprisey

  • (cs) in reply to Anon Coward
    Anonymous:

    cheesy:
    This reminds me of some of the other interns I worked with this summer. Some of the simplest programs can absolutely blow non-programmer's minds. One guy (who claimed to be majoring in comp sci) had to take a 10000+ line text file with each line containing a longitude, latitude, name and a bunch of other stuff, convert it to a different format, and remove the duplicates. He actually told me he was going to do it by hand, so I wrote a little program to do it for him in about 10 seconds and he was amazed.

     

    What did you write your program in?  Java, C++, C#?  Surely it wasn't VBA, Excel or Access, was it?

    Captcha: enterprisey

    Hmmm .. given that the user is using Windows, and the 5 stages of software development life cycle are hardy relevant for a quick code like this, I would script it in VBScript using the file system object.  I think it would be faster than throwing a quick exe with Visual Studio in C# or something.

    Of course a lot of that depends on the format of the text file, whether the code needs to be reusable ...

    Acually considering the removing of duplicates, maybe it would be faster to do it in a DTS package with a transformation doing the reformatting.

     

  • (cs) in reply to Bus Raker
    Bus Raker:

    Acually considering the removing of duplicates, maybe it would be faster to do it in a DTS package with a transformation doing the reformatting.

     

    If you're going to go to that level of WTFery, why not just use BizTalk?

     

    This post not [pi]-approved.

    Captcha: captcha

  • nsimeonov (unregistered)

    I wonder if the receptionist was actually a nice good looking girl and how did he repay? :)

  • nsimeonov (unregistered) in reply to Ogsy

    Anonymous:
    <FONT face=Verdana>Who is this organisation "Douche Telecom" he's talking about?</FONT>

    Oh boy, are you coming from Mars or from a galaxy far far away? You never heard of Deutsche Telecom? Please someone from Germany, tell him because I'll die laughing before that...

  • Tim Hill (unregistered)

    Not directly relevant, but ... the picture accompanying this WTF brings back memories. It's a close-up of a mechanical calculator known as a "Comptometer". These were very common in accounting offices right up to the 1960's, and trained operators (such as my mother!) could get pretty good pay.

    They are antiques now, of course, and I still have a couple in working order (I collect mechanical calculators). The machines were basically adders (you could subtract by doing 9's complement), but multiply was fast as well. I recall in the early '70s my mother beating one of the "new fangled" electronic calculators hands-down. Didn't matter, of course, since anyone could use a 4-function calculator with 5 minutes of training...

    --Tim

  • (cs) in reply to anonymous

    Anonymous:

    The real WTF is programmers that DO boring, repeateated, convulated task that are easy to automatize.

     

    PSUDOCODE:

    Forum.open(“post”)

    Forum.reply()

    Forum.Write(“Wooden Table”)

    Forum.Write(“Paula Bean”)

    Forum.Write(“FIST”)

    Forum.close

    <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p> </o:p>

    <o:p> </o:p>

    Would anyone actually notice the difference?  *grin*

     

  • DanixDefcon5 (unregistered)

    Daaaaumn!! It looks like the very first procedure I had to do when I was hired. Would scare the beejeezus out of any sane IT folks out there...

    I was given the task to generate a report on calling habits for the local gov't. 3 years worth.
    No problem me thinks ... except the data is all in Foxpro .dbf's. And about 20 of 'em for each month. Which was made copy-pasting, moving, linking, unlinking and monkeying around with ODBC, Access, and finally postgresql.

    ... you cannot begin to imagine the PAIN of dumping all those 240+ tables (per year) into three grand tables in a Real DBMS.

    Someone actually suggested for me to do it in access. I demonstrated how Access craps out with as little as 200k records.

    The whole shebang was 3 MILLION records per year.

    Of course ... now everything's dumped into postgres on arrival. No more copy-pasting, importing, exporting or other stuff.

    Captcha: batman. O_O

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