[AccessD] On DB Bloat, Bad DB Design, and various

>Anyhow, this developer has helped me move three times.  

Sure, any good friend would help you move...
But would he help you move a BODY?

Aw c'mon people, laugh a little!  It's Friday somewhere!


-----Original Message-----
From: DWUTKA at marlow.com [mailto:DWUTKA at marlow.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 27, 2004 4:11 PM
To: accessd at databaseadvisors.com
Subject: RE: [AccessD] On DB Bloat, Bad DB Design, and various


<snip>

... This reminds me of that scene in Shainghai Noon where the guy is 
burried in the dirt, and he is only given chopsticks to dig his way out.

:).  I've never had a problem w/ clients and their IT people... so I 
can't say I would have resorted to the same methods you took... in any 
case you mentioned that he had bad db practices, so choosing an overly 
restrictive field is very appropriate, still you stuck it to your client 
who in this case was a developer.

-- 
-Francisco
<snip>

Well it's a back and forth issue on this particular project.  I won't go
into details on that.  Don't take this particular case as typical with me.
I do a LOT of work for this particular guy.  Sometimes he gets the deal of
the century from me, sometimes he gives me way more then what I did for the
project, and sometimes it's just even.  This particular job was one where we
both got hammered really hard.  He made a lot of decisions with that job,
that I strongly disagreed with, and he knew it.  So yes, I stuck him,
because it was his decision for a lot of things.  We were fought by their IT
department on a lot of things too, and this guy doesn't have my IT
experience to really bypass their issues.  

Yes, it was a lot like the scene you describe (though I haven't seen the
movie, I understand the premise).  There were a lot of other issues too.
His client contacts me with issues.  If it's an issue I am responsible for,
I fix without charge, or hassle.  If it's his arena, or new specs, I go
through him, and ignore his client.  But I went to this client a while back,
with the developer, and while there, I fixed some of the 'data' issues (Not
problems with my stuff, and not really problems with his stuff, just people
entering incorrect data....which kind of leans towards his problems, cause
he uses .... ahem... user entered text fields as primary keys.... (please,
those of you faint of heart, please go outside and relax for a bit, I
promise I won't shock you again like that in this email. <grin>).  During
that 'meeting'/'local fix time', there were a few field issues, which he (MY
client, the developer) said he would change.  Three weeks go by, and I have
his client asking me when the changes are going to be made.  No one can get
ahold of him, they are getting very impatient.  So I made the call to go
ahead and fix them.  I first asked their IT department to do it. (described
exactly what they needed to do...would have taken THEM about 2 minutes, if
that).  I had talked to the developer before hand, and he said he had spent
a lot of time muddling around in that 'web tool', and had no idea how to
make the changes.  So with all of that behind me, I did what I knew how to
do, safely, and it worked.  And your gosh darn right I stuck it too him.  I
didn't hold him at gun point though.  He and I trade services quite often,
so he could have bartered with me.  But he didn't even try.  I think he knew
I was the one that pulled HIM out of the fire on that, because his client
was getting pissed at him.

Just as another little peice of info, I've moved 3 times in the past year
(once because of a woman....., once because of a fire, and once to get away
from a woman.  Actually, the fire was started (supposedly) by some kid being
pissed at a girlfriend, and tossing a maltose (sp?) cocktail in her window.
So, I've moved three time because of women.  Okay, this is getting OT.)
Anyhow, this developer has helped me move three times.  We have a pretty
solid relationship.

Drew

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