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...so nobody listening to me...
"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012
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Did somebody say something? 
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Patient: Doctor doctor people keep ignoring me
Doctor: Next
"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!" - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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I am right here with you. People hear the sounds but don't try to get the meaning.
oeifSMIORJRJ!
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.. and crotchety and lots of other things but there some things I'm not sure that I want to understand. I'm no longer brave enough to ask "Why?"
There was a conversation in QA yesterday (Programming, data storage, database[^]) about storing numeric IDs as strings. Drives me to distraction and I'm obviously not alone
Today I find a column at work called ACTV_IND. Hm, thinks I, could this column contain an indicator to state whether or not this item is currently "Active".
Well, yes it does.
Except instead of an "indicator" it contains the words "Yes" or "No".
I was sort of expecting a char Y or N, or even a bit 1 or 0. But it's "Yes" or "No" .This in a database that has otherwise been normalized to death (oh yeah, there are max 5 "type" of record and each type is max 3 chars - but that has been normalized away into a separate table). At a site where they are talking about destroying historical data "to save storage space".
Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, I noticed the table schema has this as varchar(15). That's longer than the longest word I've ever heard of for "Yes"! (Urdu by the way - Dschii haan, except it wouldn't be in that alphabet, but there again varchar not nvarchar)
I don't know what made me do it, perhaps some innate sadomasochistic streak, but I checked out the numeric Ids while I was there ... yep, they're all varchar(15) as well.
I'm just going to quietly write my query, get the data and get outta here.
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Ouch. I was looking for the appropriate emoji thing to respond to this post with, but nothing quite fits.
It does remind me of a time an otherwise brilliant (and self taught) programmer was doing all his JOINs in PHP instead of in SQL.
I got out of there, so I understand. There are simply wrong ways to use a database, although recently I *might* be guilty of that myself (as per my post at the top of the lounge at the moment) *hides*
Real programmers use butterflies
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If you do not use a string as datatype for this column, how would you fit "FILE NOT FOUND" into it? 
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and, if you don't define it as a string, how on earth do you get key values like "one", "two", "three" etc. into it??
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404
Luc Pattyn [My Articles]
If you can't find it on YouTube try TikTok...
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When did computer programs become "Apps", and when did programmers become developers?
Any ideas? It has puzzeled me for a while bow.
"I was an ugly kid. When my mother didn't want to have sex with my dad, she showed him my picture. -Rodney Dangerfield
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iStuff
>64
If you can keep your head while those about you are losing theirs, perhaps you don't understand the situation.
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Incidentally, I'm also of the belief that iStuff had singlehandedly killed the shareware market. The public at large now believes that an app is worth $1.99 at the most and scoffs at anything pricier.
Which is why you now have never-ending in-app purchases, but that's another story. Or is it?
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Applications became Apps around the time that of the first smartphones and the subsequent parade of mobile devices that flooded the market came to be.
I don't know about devs
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Steve Ballmer! ¿#%&@$*?
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Who was that? And why does it summon visions of a sweaty ogre hopping around on a stage?
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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Slow Eddie wrote: When did computer programs become "Apps", and when did programmers become developers?
Probably when programs started to have user interfaces and started to do more meaningful things for society in general than calculating ballistic missile trajectories. And it probably had to do with marketing as well, where "applications", or "apps", was a perceived as a friendlier, or new-shiny term.
As to developers - again, when programmers started to change roles from toggle switching, punch card coding, to actually developing interactive applications (notice the switch in terminology) that involved additional knowledge domains like user interfaces, databases, etc., a new-shiny term needed to be coined for the thinning of expertise in one domain into multiple domains. Not to mention that "programmers" classically had one or more degrees in various fields and nowadays a five year old with a Lego system can be a "developer."
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Yet we no longer have applets?
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Slow Eddie wrote: When did computer programs become "Apps", and when did programmers become developers?
'App' is not a word, its the sound I make when I get punched. It has been around for a while, but it became popular when the last virus hit us and caused massive brain damage and left behind an entire generation that needs a brain pacemaker to stay alive. 'Program' already was too complicated. The poor victims of the virus prefer to communicate only with grunts and single syllable words. And for complete idiots everything is now also available as a comic. Wait until 'developers' becomes to hard for the next generation already born with a brain pacemaker. Then they will call themselves 'appers'.
And if anyone is offended now: Look at the bright side! No brain, no headaches. 
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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CodeWraith wrote: its the sound I make when I get punched
Does it happen a lot? Do you need conseuling (or backup)? Are you in danger right now?
GCS d--(d-) s-/++ a C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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1) Used to, but that was before 'apps' were a thing.
2) No. I had good instructors.
3) Nah. They kept word and left me alone after the (honorable) discharge.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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CodeWraith wrote: when the last virus hit us and caused massive brain damage and left behind an entire generation that needs a brain pacemaker to stay alive.
I think, therefore I am underpaid.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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In my field of area, programming is what SW developers spend the least of their work time on.
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Sad, but so true...
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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I first remember the term "app" used in reference to cell phone programs. At first they were simple applications that were essentially a shortcut for certain tasks. Not being a large formal application with an extensive UI, they were an "app". Then as cell phones became more mainline and their associated apps more extensive the term migrated to mean any program on any device.
As for developer, I've heard that term used interchangeably with programmer pretty much since I started as a programmer in 1981.
But, if anyone asked what I did for a living, I elevated my nose and said, "I am a software engineer. And, Ah'm going to play the graahnd piaaaahno." 
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After a certain number of lines, a program becomes an app; before that, it used to be called a system; but that made it sound hard to use.
(Software) Developer sounds better than programmer after a certain age when they ask you what you do. Like Sanitation Engineer.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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