Week 20, 2000 ,Svenson

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15-05 to 21-05

MM-cxxxvi     Monday

2000-05-15

Again uncomfortably warm, 14°C at 6h00 and hitting 30°C at 14h00. I know, Matt would think that is rather cool but I prefer to disagree. With the humidity up as well there are thunder storms brewing.

I got the order address problem from Friday solved and ready for shipment. Unknown to me and Koen the archived file was actually used in OMSI-3 but nothing about it was documented and because it uses the same record format name (highly unusual) the cross reference did not show that file. I had to check all the programs manually to be sure they were all right.
In TeleSales the archived file was not used so Ronny had a, sleightly bigger job with it.

I had to choose between reading the news or the Daynotes. Easy choice ...
Sorry, no news today :-)

With the outside temperature reaching about 30°C the thermometer on the attic actually tops 38°C. And with the thunderstorm-risk I cannot leave the windows open at night to cool things down. I could welcome some Canadian snow. Of course that would be disastrous for the garden, sigh.

MM-cxxxvii     Tuesday

2000-05-16

We are still baking, same temperatures, with still rising humidity. A weather turn is predicted for tomorrow.

I got to define a bunch of files for TOS, the E-commerce 'version' of TeleSales. The original concept was to provide a subset of the TeleSales functionality over a browser interface to a select group of customers. The people from Progress that are designing it don't know TeleSales. Pieter and Theo have to guide the project but neither of them know TeleSales well. The result is that new functions are creeping in that have no counterpart in either TeleSales or OMSI-3. There is no objection to adding new features per se but we (Ronny and me) notice that these features are not essential and are a bit overshooting the original aim. Fine for a general e-commerce application but not fitting in our current database design. The result will be pretty but with performance problems. And a lack of maintenance procedures.
For example the new files I made today have a nice normalized design. That is fine for theory but not optimal for performance. Now, while we were forbidden to add to the database in version V7.8 for TOS everything is allowed so these files are added to V7.8. That doesn't sit well. Of course later, when the performance problems crop up we will not be allowed to change the files cause, hey that is V7.8 and that cannot be changed any more.
Another point is that no maintenance programs for these files is requested. These programs however don't fit in TOS but belong in OCS or OMSI-3. So I expect to get a panic request for them by the 14th of June (on the 15th TOS has to be finished and deployed).

Welcome to Corporate culture.

I did not check out the news today. Again. Is the world still turning?

MM-cxxxviii     Wednesday

2000-05-17

Sigh, 16C in the morning with rain. Lots of it. The afternoon turns out dry and even sunny but at a much more convenient temperature (18C).

Ronny is getting impatient. All the action has shifted from TeleSales to TOS. Bug and problem reports about TeleSales are not or only after a long delay passed on to him. Of course the Opco's don't like that. Change request become change demands and where bugs were reported with a smile we are missing the smiles. One of the biggest problem is that Theo doesn't actually manage the TeleSales project, he runs it.

Peter used to intercept all the reports and requests, check them out and pass the relevant ones on to Ronny. He solved them and tested the change. Than passed it back to Peter who did not test the change but tested the programs more generally. Afterwards Jan could test, hardly ever finding anything wrong, and accept the resolution. The whole turnaround was typically only one or two days.
Theo doesn't have the time to do it that way. TOS is "his" project and that takes about 150% of his time. The rest of his time is divided between TeleSales, Oscar and OMSI-3 (and GA and OMSI-2) The result is that problems queue up in his in-box until action is desperately needed. He than has barely enough time to check out the request, he often doesn't do that before actually passing it on to Ronny. Ronny solves it, as usual and passes it back. Time doesn't breed so Theo doesn't have some to spare and passes the solution on to Jan. Now Jan starts to grumble because he finds more and more small side problems.

Yep. Every body feels the project is being neglected, nobody is happy and nothing is going to change.

I found a problem in TeleSales while working on documentation but the solution is not obvious. Not at all.

In the news.

Doctors are protesting that too many medical dossier are being taken by courts, the number has doubled over the last five years. They argue that their professional-secret is at stake. If the doctor himself is involved in a case they see the point of seizing the dossiers but not so in other cases which makes up about 20% of the seizures.

MM-cxxxix     Thursday

2000-05-18

Night temperature is down as well (10C) so we are getting more typical spring weather lots of rain but sunshine too and temperatures closing in on the 20C.

I worked out a solution for the problem I found Yesterday.
The problem is that we have validations that can be switched on or off, but the client can also decide to run the validation online or in batch. If run online any error is reported via a message while the user is still talking to the client on the phone so he can ask/propose something to the client. When run in batch the order is not released to logistics but remains in hold, with a reason code. The client is not on the phone anymore so either the user solve the problem himself or he calls the client. One of these is intended to prevent entering the same order twice within a (user) specified period like 5 days.
To do this the new order is compared, on header level and line by line, against all the existing orders for that client in the period. If an exact match (on a subset of criteria) is found the order is assumed to be in error. Well it is just a warning because the order can still be confirmed an passed.

The problem is that, while entering the order (online) the real order files are not filled, all online test are run on a temporary file that only contains orders that are being entered. Once the order is saved it is added to the real files and deleted from the temporary files. Then the tests are run again. The testing program sees only one set of files, either the real files or the temporal files. Of course in the temporary files you never find a match.
So the same test running online or off-line gives different results.
There are several options but all of them result in a far reaching rewrite of the testing program. Which is not trivial.

No connectivity to be found yesterday evening or rather connectivity that would make a 300 baud modem look fast. So nothing got posted. Since the love bug cropped up I have had connectivity problems. I don't know if there is a relation, it could just be a tired server somewhere along the line. I must also admit that I haven't taken the time for retrying. If I didn't get a connection after two tries I just went away (to bed mostly).

At the moment Tom claims to have the highest performing box running *nix. But, considering this, for how long?
<BG>

MM-cxxxx     Friday

2000-05-19

Variable weather was predicted for today. Well we had 10°C and rain in the morning, 10°C and rain at noon, 10)C and rain in the evening. In between the rain did stop sometimes.

At work:

I took a day off so nothing to report.

My brother married today.
Well not with great ceremony, just the ceremony at the town hall and a meeting of the family afterwards. He is, like me, not the matrimonial type. He has been living together with Martinne for quite some years now but last year she lost her job and is unlikely to get a new job anytime soon (if ever).
She is an arts teacher and not many of these are needed, the work she did was on short contracts teaching to kids with learning problems, the last years she had classes of autistic kids. That are grant-subsidised temporal jobs, basically for the same money she would get if being actually unemployed. Now the allowance she gets depends on her household structure. Being single she gets more than she would get when married. But, if on inspection, it is found that she does not live alone she runs the risk of having to pay back the allowances retrospectively. Inspections are quite rare but one of her ex colleagues has be inspected (and fined) because someone had denounced her.
By getting married they make their situation officially correct. It will not change their relationship (I think)

In the news

In Brussels a tree fell on and cut trough the overhead electric wires of the railroad, causing hour long delays. What makes this special is that The NMBS (railroads) had requested the cutting down of the tree but did not get permission from the local government because the required papers for cutting it were not in order. A spokesman from the NMBS expressed the hope that security issues could get priority over bureaucracy.

I made asparagus soup. The hard way. I brought back two kilograms of asparagus pieces for soup. That are asparagus that are not grown straight or that got cut wrong or broken. It are typically pieces of between 3 and 10 cm long, in various thickness (0.5 to 4 cm) and with ragged or slanted cuts. Sometimes with splits in them. They are much more difficult to peel.
The easy way is to just clean them, boil them and then pour the broth trough a sieve. The result is a clear thin soup.
The hard way is to actually peel them, chop them up in rough, about 1 cm long chunks add these to your stock (self made by boiling down meat with some herbs) and then mix it all till all the chunks are gone. The result is a much stronger and thicker soup, one that doesn't need cream.
The big difference is that the hard way entails about two hours of peeling.
The result is a huge casserole of delicious soup, some of which can be frozen for later.
Then, while the soup is simmering nicely I peel another bunch (about 800g) of asparagus to go with the baked salmon. No need to tell I ate too much.

And I could not resist the temptation of putting this up.

(I know it is a gif that should be burned, but I don't know how to convert it to PNG while retaining the animation.)

MM-cxxxxi     Saturday

2000-05-20

It is slowly cooling down, 8°C in the morning and only about 16 or 17 at noon. We only got some rain in the morning, the rest of the day was grey and windy with a few outbreaks of sun.

Shopping, but mainly for wine and herbs, not for computer stuff.

Back home my brother is having a problem with restoring some old backups to his old Psion (the 3a) Both the main and backup battery ran out together and the data was entirely stored on the internal ram disk, both slots being filed with game modules. All the real work is stored on his Psion-5 so the loss is not dramatic. The last backup was from February last year but not much has changed since then though so what loss there is is negligible.
We finally get the files restored. The problem was that the PsiLink program on the PC only knows the Psion-5. It can do backups of the Psion-3 but that is only intended as a way to transfer stuff from a 3 to a 5. Only when the Psion-3 is set as the master will it do the restore, the PC acts as a big disk in this case.
Trough all this I remember that my own Psion (also a series 3a) hasn't been backed up since ages. While I am running a bit more safe, I store all my data on expansion modules with their own battery, I realize that a backup is needed.

I spend the whole afternoon helping to rebuild my brothers greenhouse. That was taken down for the winter but it is about time to get some tomatoes and paprika's planted. We succeed to spend the whole afternoon at it. Which is better than last year, when we spent the afternoon and evening and the next morning on it.

I succeed in flipping the nail on my right hand middle finger. While placing one of the concrete blocks, used to anchor down the greenhouse, I hit it with my nail. As the concrete is harder than my nail this bends over halfway. Because I have rather soft nails I can flip it back without breaking or tearing it. It does hurt a lot however and it is now (a few hour later) glowing hot and pulsing. My typing speed, never high, is reduced, I am back to 'two finger' mode. And I am astonished how often I use the middle finger.

MM-cxxxxii     Sunday

2000-05-21

It's dry until about 8h00 after wards its alternating between heavy rain and almost rain. It's relative cool in the morning 7°C and even cold for the time at noon (14°C).

It may be cool but for running it's only just cool enough.

I intended to some jobs in the garden but with the rain and my painful finger nail I refrain from doing so. And to keep my nail from hurting too much I stay a way from the keyboards as well.