Assumtion is the mother of all fuckups

[Jorgen Andersson]

raddevus wrote:

I'm assuming you are talking about poorly gathered requirements.

Yes, but not just. I've inherited a database and has been given the task of making it work according to new intentions. And while it's actually quite fun most of the time, I would at other times find it even funnier to meet the original designer and teach him the virtues of normalization using a bundle of nettles.

Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello

[Rick York]

I had a customer say to me once, "I won't know what I want until I see it." Yes, that is a direct quote. He was definitely the worst customer I have ever had but there are some serious contenders. The top two are both quite large companies and I do everything I possibly can to avoid buying their products.

[dandy72]

Rick York wrote:

I had a customer say to me once, "I won't know what I want until I see it."

Real-life instance of [Dilbert Comic Strip on 2006-01-29 | Dilbert by Scott Adams](http://dilbert.com/strip/2006-01-29) ?

[ZurdoDev]

Rick York wrote:

"I won't know what I want until I see it." Yes, that is a direct quote. He was definitely the worst customer I have ever had

Really? That is pretty much how all customers are. They might know what they need it to do but as far as UI design, for example, they have no clue what they want until they see it. That's pretty normal in my experience.

Everyone is born right handed. Only the strongest overcome it. Fight for left-handed rights and hand equality.

[Jon McKee]

Is it at least in 1NF? :sigh:

[Jorgen Andersson]

Mostly. The biggest problem is that he didn't have the domain knowledge to use the correct keys. Then again, he's been using a surrogate key (identity) for a year table. Yes, it has two columns (YearID, Year) :sigh: .

Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello

[Rick York]

It is quite far from normal in my experience. My customers have run the entire spectrum of zero specifications to every detail fully specified down to the colors of the items on the user interface displays. Even those with no specifications would say things like "do it like this one" or "do it like the last one was." In this customer's case, they actually had a specification but this guy treated the whole thing as being optional and we were at his beck and call. He ended up delaying the project so badly that when we were asked about it we said because of (this guy) and when his bosses saw the absurdities things were changed in a big hurry.

[Sander Rossel]

SELECT
FORMAT(y.Year, '0000') + '-' + FORMAT(m.Month, '00') + '-' + FORMAT(d.Day, '00') AS OrderDate
FROM SalesOrder o
JOIN Year y ON y.Id = o.YearId
JOIN Month m ON m.Id = o.MonthId
JOIN Day d ON m.Id = o.DayId

You mean there's another way to store dates? :D

Best, Sander sanderrossel.com Continuous Integration, Delivery, and Deployment arrgh.js - Bringing LINQ to JavaScript Object-Oriented Programming in C# Succinctly

[Jorgen Andersson]

Apparently there are a few. Sometimes more than one in the same db.

Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello

[kmoorevs]

Hmmm, never had that problem using identities. :laugh:

"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse

[Dr Walt Fair PE]

Yes, I'va made a nice living cleaning up engineering evaluatuiions that other companies started and couldn't finish. In every case hundreds, when I finally got to the root of the problem, it was always the one thinbg that everyone assumed without checking. Every time! Now, whenever I start looking at a project, the first thing I do, is start asking fir proof that ALL of the assumptions are warranted. Usually, once we get to the critical one, the project manager sighs and says well now we can fix it ourselves. That's fine by me, I already charged my time and I can work on something really challenging!

CQ de W5ALT

Walt Fair, Jr., P. E. Comport Computing Specializing in Technical Engineering Software

[Mycroft Holmes]

We have this as SOP, users come to us with an idea, partial spec is proposed and accepted, prototype developed and then the real requirements begin to emerge. Been doing it that way for 30+ years, I have never worked from a complete spec in my entire career.

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity - RAH I'm old. I know stuff - JSOP

[Lost User]

Rick York wrote:

had a customer say to me once, "I won't know what I want until I see it."

Handled properly these are way better than clients that give you a whole mess of specs... specs: often in a small co: written by a boss who doesn't really know what the underlings need nor appreciate how it's done now and even less how it could be done better. often in a large co: written by a bunch of idio "consultants" who get led around by a boss and never really ask the users as all they do is listen to the boss who . For mine, the less specs the better, talk to the users, don't ask them "what they do," but rather "what do they need to get done and what's the best way to get it done (with respect to, if any SOP)" End result is a combination of application and business improvement, the staff will be happy, the boss will be happier as he gets happy staff and improved productivity. Put simply: Show me someone that asks for specs and I'll show you a junior programmer.

[RickZeeland]

The problem with those large companies is that nobody takes responsibility and just points to someone else exclaiming "He's the responsible guy !", in Dutch we name this sort of thing "Zwarte Pieten" :-\

[ZerqTheMad]

assume makes a ass out u and me

[KBZX5000]

Ha! I'm in the same boat. I need to scrap an "obsolete" database-listener service. And they also want to retain all the functionality, like performing manual edits in the database should still trigger various workloads. *sigh*

[Nathan Minier]

Jörgen Andersson wrote:

Yes, it has two columns (YearID, Year)

That'd be hysterical if it wasn't so tragic.

"Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity." - Hanlon's Razor

[Lost User]

More to the point, why do we insist on using f*** to represent what we all know it actually means? Same as c***; 99% of English speaking readers, I’d wager, know exactly what word this represents. What’s wrong with using cock up if we want to supposedly sanitise the written word? Asking for a friend! 😂

[Gary Wheeler]

Jörgen Andersson wrote:

teach him the virtues of normalization using a bundle of nettles

That's so environmentally unfriendly of you. A few strokes, the nettles wear out, and you have to harvest more. I prefer a bundle of rusted barbed-wire scraps. They last forever, and the extra weight adds emphasis to the stroke.

Software Zen: delete this;

[Lost User]

Damn! Even the shortened version of a male hen is obscured. I’m living in a world of censorship