• Davor (unregistered) in reply to Pixa

    Looks like Delphi to me, at least, that's where I think I've seen some of these structures.

  • My name is irrelevant (unregistered) in reply to d.k.ALlen
    d.k.ALlen:
    My name is irrelevant:
    Regarding SQL in general:

    Due to a recent incident, I request that the WHERE clause becomes mandatory for UPDATE statements...

    Like this: Blah blah blah WHERE TRUE blah blah

    Right?

    Right. If you really want to update all rows. Very often you want to update only a few or only one.

  • Androtheos (unregistered) in reply to Remy Porter
    Remy Porter:
    It may be "less" WTF-y, but I do not believe there exists a reporting solution which isn't a complete WTF.

    Agreed! They all try to make it powerful and flexible while "dumbing" it down so that your average user can utilize it which always fails because average users have no idea how to make sense of the data structure so it can be turned into information. Colossal fail, always!

  • Dominic (unregistered)

    TRWTF is agreeing to work with those amazed peers

  • ih8u (unregistered) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    Anomaly:
    How about from the perspective of the Guru?

    Lets assume hes a team player. And everyone has had the same training, started in the same class, and was given the same opportunity. The guru candidate will be the one paying attention in training. Taking notes out on the floor. Asking questions about every little detail. And actually remembering what he is told.

    ... snipped further love and admiration of the guru ...

    Instead of firing every guru so you get nothing but incompetent drones. Fire every drone until you get nothing but gurus.

    QFT. Why the hell isn't this Featured yet?

    Because he redefined the term "guru". The so called guru in the article was slightly better than a monkey banging away mindlessly at the keyboard*. The guru posited by Anomaly is intelligent. He was the one "paying attention in training".

    This is not the same guru, so the should-be-featured post is actually somewhat off topic.

    • I understand that I may be incorrect in assuming that the guru fta is NOT a monkey.
  • DB (unregistered) in reply to eViLegion
    eViLegion:
    It's fucking Business Language, yeah?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr3eT3kZz4A

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGOohBytKTU

  • Anomaly (unregistered) in reply to ih8u
    ih8u:
    Anon:
    Anomaly:
    How about from the perspective of the Guru?

    Lets assume hes a team player. And everyone has had the same training, started in the same class, and was given the same opportunity. The guru candidate will be the one paying attention in training. Taking notes out on the floor. Asking questions about every little detail. And actually remembering what he is told.

    ... snipped further love and admiration of the guru ...

    Instead of firing every guru so you get nothing but incompetent drones. Fire every drone until you get nothing but gurus.

    QFT. Why the hell isn't this Featured yet?

    Because he redefined the term "guru". The so called guru in the article was slightly better than a monkey banging away mindlessly at the keyboard*. The guru posited by Anomaly is intelligent. He was the one "paying attention in training".

    This is not the same guru, so the should-be-featured post is actually somewhat off topic.

    • I understand that I may be incorrect in assuming that the guru fta is NOT a monkey.

    To reiterate I was not speaking to the guru as mentioned in the article. I was speaking to trtrwtf who wanted to fire all guru's indefinitely. Which is short sighted.

  • dilligaf (unregistered) in reply to Anomaly
    Anomaly:
    How about from the perspective of the Guru?

    Lets assume hes a team player. And everyone has had the same training, started in the same class, and was given the same opportunity. The guru candidate will be the one paying attention in training. Taking notes out on the floor. Asking questions about every little detail. And actually remembering what he is told.

    Everyone else slacked off in training. Knows how to do enough to get by their day to day job but god forbid a single thing be out of routine or they come crying to the most competent member on the team.

    And in the beginning all was well. He answered questions, gave tips for improvement and generally helped out. But as time goes on the questions keep being repeated. Information that should be remembered not asked for because its more convenient is being forgotten immediately after it is asked for. It gets frustrating having to repeat the same procedures, same tips, same improvements over and over again. He starts to give less information. Pointing to manual where the information can be found. Maybe even pointing out the page numbers in the manual. And it progress until all you get from him is "read the manual".

    But its the gurus fault for being more apt at understanding the job. So lets fire him. Not the people who show no ability to actually retain what they were trained to do.

    Instead of firing every guru so you get nothing but incompetent drones. Fire every drone until you get nothing but gurus.

    Amen, preach the word.

    You didn't go there. but what frequently happens in this scenario is the drones develop attitudes. "The guru gets all the fun projects." "The guru told me I need to follow procedures." "The guru is telling me what to do." And soon, in the typical pollyannish corporate clown show, the guru is directed by management to be more inclusive - after all, the drones just want to learn!

    So the guru parses out some work for the drones. The drones complain, this is too boring. At this point the manager steps in and says "Big upcoming project will be driven by drone X!!" What actually happens is the guru is accosted at every turn by drone X and either helps the drone do the work or does the work himself. The project is completed and the drone takes all the credit and is given congratulations by the manager and the other drones. If the guru complains, he's not a team player and a bit of an asshole besides.

    Of course as soon as the project goes south, drone X rejects all claims to ownership and blames the guru for not helping him. providing the proper level of support, etc.

    The alternate choice the guru has is to not help with the project, which brings immediate failure and the blame-fest I just described.

    Is every company like this? Thankfully no, but it sure seems like a lot of smaller shops are. Eventually they are staffed solely by drones and are then assaulted by a clown car full of consultants.

    TL; DR: for every kingdom building "guru" out there, there's a "guru" who's just trying to keep the ship from hitting the shore or sinking.

  • History Teacher (unregistered) in reply to trtrwtf
    trtrwtf:
    Matt Westwood:

    It is a matter of competence. It's a matter of being competent enough to ensure that everything you do is transparent. And any shithead employee of mine who can't be fucked to write his documentation is getting a rocket-propelled boot up his arsehole.

    I love how even when you're agreeing with me I feel like you're arguing with me. Try a rocket-propelled valium.

    Most WTFey persons in positions where can fire people are like that. They often have rapidly changing collection of underlings, and they are somehow proud that they get rid of some people fast, when they should be looking into a mirror, and think how to build a stable team and mentor new people to meet the expectations.

    Of course you can't really tell from one comment, if poster you replied to is really this kind of person. Or a person at all, this being the Internet and all.

  • Luiz Felipe (unregistered)

    Someone played too much red dead redemption.

  • (cs) in reply to EvilSnack
    EvilSnack:
    Having a guru--that is, a person in a team that other team members chronically rely on for expertise--is a sign of management failure. (Note that this is not the Dilbert version of a guru, which is a person whose utterances are treated by management as if they had descended from heaven on stone tablets, accompanied by angels with trumpets.)

    We call it the Truck Number: "How many people in our department can be hit by trucks on the way to work this morning before we become unable to function?" Good managers always strive to push the Truck Number up. (Other people have other names for this concept, which I am sure will be made known in upcoming comments.)

    Captcha 'verto': Vini, vidi, verto!

    I half agree with you on this. Yes every team member should have a good amount of knowledge about the technologies their team uses. However if they have additional in depth knowledge about a specific technology, aka specialty, then that can complement other team members specialties.
  • Dogged (unregistered) in reply to EvilSnack

    We had the same situation. One guy who codes. The rest writing function definitions.

  • uioped1 (unregistered) in reply to Pixa

    the language is... ssrs expression syntax.

    you were exactly correct, it's pretty close to vba...

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