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When I got my DSL, they gave me this wireless router, which I think is pretty much a piece of crap, but I've never replaced it.
A couple weeks ago, my laptop and desktop stopped "seeing" each other. This was not a voluntary breakup, nor an involuntary one induced by some overzealous admin-parent. I had thought it might be because I had installed some low level TCP/IP drivers on my desktop machine, but no, that was insufficient to drive a wedge between the lovely relationship.
Yesterday was strange. We had a foot of snow. The lights kept flickering, but we didn't lose power, though a lot of the rest of the village did. We have this old coaxial cable line (I don't think it's the DSL, isn't that twisted pair all the way???) between the main house and the carriage house where I live. No, I'm not a horse, it hasn't been used for horses in probably 80 years.
Anyways, several large heavy snow laden branches of fir tree fell on the cable, dragging in to the ground (there must have been a lot of slack somewhere) and across the driveway, which now being 7 PM, pitch black, and accumulating snow faster than fleas on a kitten, I figured something ought to be done.
So I sawed off enough limbs to pull the line free, then we bothered my neighbor on the second floor, whose very handy son climbed out the window onto the second floor "deck" far enough to do something funky with a carabiner and hooked it onto a post protruding from the house (the cable loops through something there as well) while I held the line taught (that's a lot of weight on a cable that's probably 70 feet between the two houses) while watching the snow plows drive by on the street.
So now the line is suspended a good 10 - 12 feet above the ground, out of the way of the future snow plow.
I come back inside, and my girlfriend exclaims that she tried as best she could to keep the fire lit (it was all embers now) and that the wireless had stopped working (yes, we get back to the router now.) Very odd, the wireless light was out, but the Internet light was on, and the Internet still worked (my son breathed a sigh of relief because he does some late night gaming. Sigh.)
Threw some kindling on the fire, closed the doors, and started fussing with the router. A couple hours later I use my cell phone to google resetting the router. I should have done this a long time ago. The directions say, hold the reset button for 30 seconds. Seems like 5 was enough, but I didn't do it right when I tried it earlier - I was holding the reset button while powering on the router, I should have just done the reset after it was powered on.
The default username and password on the website are wrong too. It's not "Admin" and "Password", it's "admin" and "password". Took another 5 minutes to remember that gem from a few years ago.
So, lo-and-behold, after resetting the damn thing, the wireless started working again. Not only that, but my laptop and desktop machines have rediscovered their relationship. Yay! Oddly, the whole Internet experience seems faster too - particularly page loads.
And I think this was just a series of synchronous but disconnected events. I doubt the cable is the DSL line, but I could be wrong. The fire rekindled itself after about 15 minutes and we had a lovely dinner (that is, if you have a passion for lentil soup and brussel sprouts steamed and then covered in butter, and lightly salted and peppered.)
Oh yeah, Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Marc
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Only in the sense of being brought in as a consultant to fix the mess. 
Marc
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At least you got payed for (I hope so!)... 
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter wrote: At least you got payed for (I hope so!)
Yes quite, but it's interesting how frustrating the process can be, working with crappy code. To give you an example, I took one function with 20 or so property "setters" all hand-coded against a database table and replaced the whole thing with one line of Linq and some reflection.
Now, imagine dozens of these functions, because there are dozens of these tables, each of which was hand-coded, and all of which, comprising thousands and thousands of lines of code, could be reduced to my one line general purpose function.
And no, performance is not an issue, using reflection is just fine, etc.
And this code was written by someone (around Jan of 2014) claiming to have 20 years of experience and degrees in Computer Science.
Argh. It's really strange, but I can actually "hear" the code screaming, like a deformed baby from some horror movie. It sure needs a lot of healing.
Marc
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Marc Clifton wrote: And no, performance is not an issue, using reflection is just fine, etc.
Not sure how that it relevant since of course performance would be mostly impacted by the database call itself and of course the overall architecture.
Marc Clifton wrote: And this code was written by someone (around Jan of 2014) claiming to have 20 years of experience and degrees in Computer Science.
Did the code work?
Was it laid out in a consistent manner?
Was the code that was created by the one individual consistent between different entities?
If the answer to all of those is no then it was crappy code.
If the answer is yes then of course you are discussing a preference which has nothing to do with the actual quality of the code.
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Yes, yes, and yes.
jschell wrote: If the answer is yes then of course you are discussing a preference which has nothing to do with the actual quality of the code.
Not really. It's costly to maintain because to make a change (like adding a column to the DB) requires:
Add a field
Adding the get/set property
Updating the query method
Updating the insert method
Updating the update method
Updating the method that copies the DB field to the properties
Updating the method that copies the properties to the DB fields.
What should take one minute ends up taking about 30, not to mention that none of the code is abstracted enough to mock the DB and write unit tests, so the only way to test the changes is to actually run the app, which is a web service, so that requires a bunch of complex hoops on the client side to even get to the point where you can access the changed functions.
That's all factual issues, not opinion.
Marc
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Marc Clifton wrote: It's costly to maintain because to make a change (like adding a column to the DB) requires:...
Err...no it doesn't.
To add a column to a field should be a business decision and as such it will have an end to end impact on one or more systems. The cost of making this simple change to one system, presuming that the database layer is laid out using some consistent methodology is trivial because it is so straightforward. The impacts to the other parts of the system(s), one would hope should also be as easy but that depends on whether each level was also using a consistent methodology.
Unfortunately what is much more likely to happen is that some layer uses several methodologies. Or is basically just an example of chaos. And thus the cost goes up because of this.
As well one must ignore other issues such as prioritization of improvements/bugs versus the tradeoffs of whatever expertise exists currently within the development staff along with delivery times which also have an impact on real and perceived costs.
Marc Clifton wrote: What should take one minute ends up taking about 30
Perhaps we work in different environments but I work with teams and methodologies which have the following constraints.
- Estimates are not less than an hour and often four.
- Code must be unit tested, and adding unit tests even for a new column is going to take more than one minute regardless of what it takes to actually add the column.
This doesn't include things like building, running unit tests, checking in code and taking care of the ticket(s) that initiated the change in the first place.
Not to mention of course that before all of this occurs reviewing why the change was needed in the first place would take time.
Marc Clifton wrote: so that requires a bunch of complex hoops on the client side to even get to the point where you can access the changed functions.
If that is relevant than it suggests something either wrong with the design/architecture or it has nothing at all to do with how the database layer is implemented.
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Marc Clifton wrote: claiming to have 20 years of experience and degrees in Computer Science.
Programming was a lot different back then. Having 20 years of experience is not the same as having 20 years of knowledge 
I know people with many years of experience who still code like they're in VB1 (yes, really!).
My blog[ ^]
public class SanderRossel : Lazy<Person>
{
public void DoWork()
{
throw new NotSupportedException();
}
}
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Once saw a new years resolution to "finish more projects than I start" 
____________________________________________________________
Be brave little warrior, be VERY brave
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Yeah, there are also times that I start a new side project after putting the first brick only.
To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems - Homer Simpson
----
Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction - Francis Picabia
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We had a company outing today for open ship on the new German research vessel Sonne[^].
Back in the company the boss gave us the rest of the day off. So I'm already at home now.
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What does it research? Or does it just "look for things" generally?
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Maybe the new RV Sonne has a glass bottom to research the old RV Sonne
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Not necessary. She's still swimming. Actually in Colombo waiting to be selled.
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Areas of operation are geology, climate, oceanography and marine biology deep sea research in the Pacific and the Indian Ocean.
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Yay! All the mercans are getting pished and/or fatted.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving, and don't forget to thank your local native mercans for all they did!
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Nagy Vilmos wrote: All the mercans are getting pished and/or even more fatted.
FTFY!
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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I represent that remark!
I'm retired. There's a nap for that...
- Harvey
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This Mercan's celebrating Thanksgiving by attending scrum. 
/ravi
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What? Mercats?
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a f***ing golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?"
"You mean like from space?"
"No, from Canada."
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The Syrian Electronic Army has hacked a number of news websites after apparently compromising a third party content delivery network, possibly an advertising network.
The Pro-Assad javascript popup appeared across several websites, including The Telegraph, The Independent, Forbes, Time Out, PC World and The Evening Standard.
The Graniad was saved by a misspelt URI on the site.
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Movie Quote Of The Day
Those could be giant Jiffy-Pop poppers.
Which movie?
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