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Lock and Key was originally published on January 22, 2008.
When a young, entrepreneurial beautician decided to open up a tanning salon, she wanted her new business to be "high-tech." She wasn't exactly sure what that meant, let alone how to go about doing it, so she retained the services of a software consulting firm to help her get there.
This is the second of two stories from the "Pitch a WTF" panel at PenguiCon. It's presented anonymously, only because my notes were caught in a horrific game of "keep away" perpetrated by reprogrammed assembly line robots I forgot to write down the submitter's email address. So if you're the submitter and would like me to 1984 your name back into the story, drop me a line.
Of all the things the lab's new printer could do, printing Bob's document didn't seem to be one of them. The printer sat in the hallway, hooked up to an old PC that was the de facto print server. Bob logged on, and pulled up the print queue. His print job sat patiently beneath the only other job.
The German-designed Schuko power plugs and sockets have a few advantages when compared to the American-style (or, “normal” as we call them) plugs.
Vince the PM burst into Rick's office like a blister. "Have you replied to ticket 178843 yet? No? Why not? How could you not! This is urgent! It's a failure at the customer site!"
Rick calmly checked the ticket manager. The ticket had arrived only 45 seconds ago, so no, he had not replied to the ticket yet. Rick calmly and silently read the ticket while Vince hyperventilated over his shoulder. The customer reported that the database client failed with the error "Segmentation Fault - Core Dumped".
Tennyson is lucky. While most .NET developers are limited to the .NET Framework (and the thousands of available third-party libraries) to solve their software development problems, Tennyson's toolbox touts the Global Services Enterprise Systems Framework. Well, technically, the GSESF is the only library allowed, but then again, it's the only library one should ever need.
"Third-party libraries introduce unnecessary risk into projects," the Global Services Enterprise Systems Lead Architect – or, The Architect, as he preferred to be called – would often say. "If the library is closed sourced, then we will be unable to fix bugs. If it is open-sourced, then we will not only have another codebase to maintain, but it will introduce certain legal risks."
The following is one of two stories we gathered during the Pitch a WTF panel at Penguicon. As I'm sure you'll come to understand, the submitter wanted both them and their company to remain anonymous. Thank you to everyone who came out and inflicted their horrors in person.
Sep 11