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Computing by Warhol!
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Are all chicken coops militarily backed?
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Do you know feather that rumor is a load of spur-ious crop? It's always easy to peck on the military, their fife's and drum-sticks.
(Did Colonel Sanders influence your post?)
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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(I'm waiting for Steve Austin.)
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Now I've got that silly "bionic" sound as an earworm!
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Woodkid - Iron[^]
Google recommended some Metalhammer article to me last week, 10 pop song black metal fans should listen to.
The 10 songs had absolutely nothing to do with black metal.
For example, Portishead and Kanye West were on it.
The rationale was that these songs were "emotional, just like good black metal."
Ok, so that's a huge stretch, but whatever, it's not like all 10 songs sucked (some did).
In fact, this one song stuck around in my playlist.
Awesome song, or as the Metalhammer guy describes it "Melancholia and introspection. Woodkid finds your emotional wounds, stabs them and twists the knife for good measure."
Not a lot of emotion or stabbing or twisting on my side, but a great song nonetheless!
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Thank you for this. Now added to my playlist.
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Also added. Thanks for pointing it out. Reminds me a bit of Cosmo Sheldrake (who I'm certain I mentioned before).
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Can totally hear it too, nice one! 
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Interesting, I don't think I've (knowingly) heard the genre before!
It all sounds a bit alike though... Not something I can listen to for two hours 
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Tonight is the first I've heard it, too. Some of the 'destruction' music I really liked. But I can't argue that a lot of it was alike. 
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The music sometimes reminded me of Ayreon, which you might like: Into The Electric Castle[^]
It's melodic metal from The Netherlands and I don't really like it, but it's also story-driven and the artwork is pretty steam punk 
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A lot of the last year, I have been gutting legacy code from our app and rewriting from scratch a stupendous marvel!
-- Except --
Due to [legal stuff redacted] we need to handle the legacy data structure. This means at the back all the bd data needed to be preserved and it restrained the new functionality.
I have ticket to add back in some intentionally omitted elephantine functionality. You cannot believe the joy I had in closing it with a comment of "Not going to happen! We've removed it as it should never have been there, there is a better and EASIER way to do it now!"
The ticket has been reopened as "the user doesn't want to change their workflow"...
veni bibi saltavi
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Quote: rewriting from scratch a stupendous marvel!
Which is, often, quite satisfying …
Quote: "the user doesn't want to change their workflow"
Which, often, translates into: someone makes his/her living maintaining that workflow …
Espen Harlinn
Senior Architect - Ulriken Consulting AS
The competent programmer is fully aware of the strictly limited size of his own skull; therefore he approaches the programming task in full humility, and among other things he avoids clever tricks like the plague.Edsger W.Dijkstra
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Espen Harlinn wrote: Which, often, translates into: someone makes his/her living maintaining that workflow …
Agreed. I've experienced numerous situations where one or more people resist change as the old way of doing things means job security.
One program we replaced featured a 2-digit code field with hundreds of potential values. One user had the codes memorized and could fly through data entry, while everyone else could remember the commonly used codes but was hampered by having to look up any of hundreds of uncommon codes. [The old application was written in Clipper, so the "GUI" was text based.]
That one user was threatened by the idea that, using the new application (which had a lookup mechanism for the codes), anyone could be trained quickly to do that job. I was told this resulted in a number of ugly shouting matches between that one user and various managers.
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I think we've all seen this pattern.
Now, I love keypunch fields like that, and in the past, I've only made one modification.
I allow the user to hit a key (? or F3, etc), while on that field, to open up a lookup dialog, and search by name, or scroll... And select.
The best of both worlds. The old user cannot complain, because it does not affect them!
The new users get trained faster/better.
For the record, this should have been designed INTO the product in the first place, in general.
Nobody should have to remember "codes"
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Kirk 10389821 wrote: For the record, this should have been designed INTO the product in the first place, in general.
Nobody should have to remember "codes"
You've obviously never worked on some of the old mainframe systems.
When your paying big dollars per KB, you're not going to waste it by putting in "helper" type messages when a piece of printed paper with values for lookup codes will do.
Many of the "codes" we see in modern systems are often a legacy from the time when every bit was precious.
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Actually, I did work on legacy systems.
And whenever we moved them to Clipper (oh, the days), or some other technology,
we implemented the lookups.
Not much I could do with the COBOL, other MANY of the 3270 terminals had extended function keys, and second terminals to assist in the lookups. Sometimes on another screen/window. And then back. It wasn't the best, but it beat memory and the often TAPED OVER PAPER all around the keyboard.
In fact, if you look HARD enough at an HTML FORM, and a mainframe screen. You wig out because it's so similar. Fields defined, the form is defined, the update is pushed back with the field values encoded, but the rest of the screen not sent. It's crazy. Everything OLD is new again. LOL
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this stresses the importance of having a user requirement document/functional design documents signed off by the user/department of the business before the system is designed or changed.. i had a case where the user just had a user manual with screen shots of the old program and said they new program needs to have all this...it did'nt end well...
Caveat Emptor.
"Progress doesn't come from early risers – progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things." Lazarus Long
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I never understood these rewrites that should basically produce the exact same application 
It would probably be best to sit down with the user and show them how it's done now.
In fact, this request might not even come from a user, but from a manager who thinks their employees should not lose time/make mistakes learning a new system because it would look bad on them.
Or maybe a manager with no imagination who thinks the current system is the best and/or only system that works for their department.
Or it may come from users who are afraid they'll not understand the new system and it could cost them their job.
In my experience, this kind of behavior is usually not bad intent, but lack of knowledge or fear of the unknown.
That's why it's so important to involve users early on.
And sometimes, just sometimes, the users really have some very specific functionality or workflow that we developers and/or business analysts missed and the new system would make their job harder or take longer. Nah, who am I kidding? We're perfect 
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In our case one of the main reasons for the rewrite is to move to newer technology in order to move to different more cost effective hosting - Windows Server to Linux. Also for easier maintainability going forward. The new system isn't an exact copy of the old, but familiar enough for users to find their way.
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Jacquers wrote: more cost effective hosting
Must be some cheap hosting if it outweighs the costs of a rewrite 
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