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My life the soap opera

Author

Topic

elwoos
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker

2052 Posts

Posted - 2011-10-21 : 07:13:06

Here's a little tale that might amuse you for the weekend. Although it's not about SQL Server it is about a database.

This particular database is pretty old and we need to integrate with it, in particular write data to it. The supplier don't provide any mechanism to do this, so we use a product that acts like a user would i.e. it clicks on things and types data. Slow but effective.

This all works reasonably well most of the time. The problems come when there is a change to the app. The people who use the app request changes to it on a regular basis and the supplier is more than happy to make the changes.

Despite regular meetings with the users and an agreement that they will let us know about any changes they completely fail to do so (hands up anyone who is suprised by this). Fairly obviously this sometimes means our integration falls over because something isn't where it is expected to be on screen. Sometimes this is easy to fix, sometimes not so easy.

As a little bit more background there were two of us that wrote the original integration, the other guy has left some months ago and won't be replaced, leaving just me that fully understands how it works.

We've teetered along like this for some considerable time now and the overall setup has been reasonably stable. Now comes the fun bit. Completely out of the blue today I get an email that was sent to all users of this system which begins with the line

quote:
IN PREPARATION FOR THE NEW SYSTEM...

Hmm thinks me, new system, first I have heard of it, I wonder when that is being rolled out (never mind when they considered actually telling us). Reading the rest of the email it turns out that this is on 2nd November.

Initially I was pretty speechless, as it is a couple of weeks away. Then I realised I am on holiday that day, in fact I am on holiday from next thursday until 7th November. So while I am sitting on a beach that is about 30 degrees drinking the cocktail of the day I am sure I will think about this (honest) and laugh. The very best bit is that the users are the HR department

Steve

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What color do you want that database?

elwoos
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker

2052 Posts

Posted - 2011-10-21 : 07:16:45

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

I've just had another email saying that the date given was wrong it should be next thursday (27th October). I can't begin to explain how pleased I am that on that day I will be flying to warmer climes.

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What color do you want that database?

robvolk
Most Valuable Yak

15732 Posts

Posted - 2011-10-21 : 07:41:02

I'm sure your out-of-office reply will include "Any system problems should be addressed by vendor ABC, since it was working fine before they changed it."

Michael Valentine Jones
Yak DBA Kernel (pronounced Colonel)

7020 Posts

Posted - 2011-10-21 : 11:15:42

It may be time to re-evaluate that UI as API strategy.

CODO ERGO SUM

robvolk
Most Valuable Yak

15732 Posts

Posted - 2011-10-21 : 12:02:20

quote:
Originally posted by Michael Valentine Jones

It may be time to re-evaluate that UI as API strategy.

A few jobs ago I made a career out of VBScripting telnet sessions to an old HP-UX system running INGRES. Crazy idea, but it was damn fun programming. Got me started on SQL Server.

Kristen
Test

22859 Posts

Posted - 2011-10-21 : 13:24:57

Thanks for the updated copy of your CV Steve