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Week 37, 2000 ,Svenson

Sjon



 

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Kelshon Saga. The logs. (book37.9 p248)

04-09 to 10-09

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MM-cclv     Monday

 

2000-09-11

 

412

Again a clear starry turn misty turn sunny day. With temperatures brushing up to thirty and over (53°C in my car but that was parked in the sun).

The free of charge problem is tested and boxed up for shipping. Both for the V8 and V9 versions. Ronny has to amend some details on his side of things now but that should take less than an hour.

I shifted the 'online validation doesn't work' problem forward. In stead of just adding the necessary code I actually junked a lot and rewrote the tests. Normally we go for the minimal change option even if it makes the code convoluted and, in the end, incomprehensible because often the change we make must be copied from our common programs into some local adaptation. This is often done by a non-programmer or rather a programmer with limited knowledge of our system and language. Imagine an experienced C++ coder amending some mainframe COBOL program. For this reason it is important that we never actually remove code but rather comment it out and add the new code in context; and that we keep the changes as small as possible. It is rather uncommon to actually replace a bunch of perfectly good code if it can be amended with a few extra lines.

And we 'reduced' (as in simmering a sauce) a problem in Norway to a code page issue.
Some weeks ago (on 25th of June we tacked that very same problem by creating a local adaptation. That has worked fine but somehow it didn't work once causing impossible defaults and a problem report. Now I should start working on a common solution. A local solution is relatively easy because it entails straight substituting of characters. A common solution has to work with different code pages (in Norway a $ becomes an Å , in France it will become something else entirely) and it should not involve a change on the Progress side of things.

 

American Express came up with a way to make credit card payments more secure. Well, not really much more secure but this could boost the perceived security by the public. While it sounds good it adds an extra layer between the users and an online shop so I guess this will only be used for one off or first time buys.


Why does a restore only restores the data and not the time that got lost as well?

 

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MM-cclvi     Tuesday

 

2000-09-12

 

524

sunrise, 38k Guess what? Beautifully stars at 6:00, low cloud and mist at 7:00 and bright burning sun at 8:00. The low clouds produced a wonderful red sunrise with the sky turning from black over a pastel blue with dark black and brown streaks to light blue with scarlet bands of cloud and a rose glow around a brilliant red rising sun. Later, in the afternoon things became a bit hazy and by evening no blue sky was to be seen anymore. (taken trough the windscreen while driving 120Kmh, xga available on request).

Solved the validation-16 problem. I think. Well I did all the changes and the bugger compiled without errors or even warnings (unless you call "there were no syntax errors" a warning. which it usually is because most of the time it means "there were no syntax errors but I am falling over laughing at your semantic errors." <g> ). I never got time to test it.

And I solved an additional problem with the FOC. When creating a FOC order from scratch, that is not turning a default order into FOC, the conditions on header level (transport costs, invoice fee, etc. ) became active.

And I corrected a condition clearing problem. Clearing the conditions on an order would clear them from the whole order, even if part of the order was already shipped. And you cannot/should not change anything once an order is released to logistics (which does the shipping). (testing still pending°

And I solved the code page problem. Well not exactly but .... .
The solution we are trying out is to bundle up all the parameter data into one long string and pass it over from the AS/400 to the TeleSales server. Currently, that is till today, only the actually needed values were passed. If TeleSales needed a value that was not loaded yet it made a call for that value. So we replace the potential 40 odd call with a single one. Once on the TeleSales side that string has to be parsed.
There are five sets of data that must be handled this way and we are doing on set as w test. If it works we will pull in the other sets.
Of course I am not doing this alone. Ronny handles the parsing side, which is basically stringing together a bunch of existing steps and unrolling a loop. Something like that. I do the AS/400 side where I have to cast all values into character type and string them all together.
Testing tomorrow.

Yep that was full speed ahead today. With only a mild interruption in the morning while discussing with Theo and Ronny, with a few interjections by Koen, of how we were going to solve it.

Ronny is happy again as he is getting job again. I am not sure how Theo is feeling, a bit like a pendulum I guess. He is giving TeleSales some more time now but he must obviously drop some time elsewhere.

 

This is not fresh but well worth any extra distribution.


Time not spent doing a good job will be time lost when tackling problems.

 

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MM-cclvii     Wednesday

 

2000-09-13

 

393

A break in the Indian summer. Grey from morning into the evening and temperatures that are down by a degree of five (11°C).

I worked most of the day on the code page problem.
The reason why it takes so long is that new fields must be defined for all the values. In a first trial I attempted to concatenate all the values into a string for passing. That didn't turn out good because standard concatenation either puts an extra blank between the fields, not bad except that Ronny had already calculated and coded the offsets for all the fields without the extra blanks. Or all trailing blanks are dumped which is bad because some values only contain blanks and because it makes actual field offsets unpredictable. I lost quite some time here.
I finally settled for building a fixed data structure, converting the programs to RPG-IV, and filling that.

 

With the petrol (or rather the gasoline or diesel) prises rising Belgian truckers copied the actions of their French colleagues. The actions started about the time the French stopped, on Sunday. By Monday the actions were trimming down. Only one of the smaller unions kept the blockades up. By Monday evening the other unions came back into action. Originally only Brussels (it is the capital after all) was being blocked by a handful of truckers on some strategic cross-roads. Later some fuel distribution centres got blocked as well. Today on about all the mayor highways and some other strategic points (bridges and tunnels) got blocked as well. The result is that Ronny may not get home again and if he gets home chances of him getting back to work tomorrow are slim.
I got home by using some alternate roads. Due to unexpected road works and (expected) extra trafic it took me about two and a half hour to get home.

Just when I needed to be home sooner for helping my brother out with transporting a pallet of concrete flagstones (he has got a coupe and I have a mono-volume). Of course the pallet itself didn't fit in the car so we had to load and unload all the stones by hand.
Which is when I notice I'm no longer twenty.


Windows is all about making the hard stuff invisible. Linux is all about making the hard stuff understandable. (Joe Barr)

 

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MM-cclviii     Thursday

 

2000-09-14

 

653

Red Alert:
Jerry Pournelle got bitten by, Qaz.Trojan, a Trojan horse type of bug. If your NOTEPAD.EXE is way over 55K Check out the info at Symantec (nw) about the beast, and get the cleanup instructions. It changes (or replaces) notepad.exe, growing it to well over 100K. (my clean Win95 notepad is 34k, with a 12k help and 1k cnt file, my W98 has 52 for the exe, 8 for hlp, 1 for cnt and 62 for chm (?))

So, stop reading and check your system.


Welcome back

Grey but still dry. And with the same temperatures as yesterday. In the evening, as darkness settles down the clouds broke up. And now, at 22:30 I am looking at a ghostly red moon playing hide and seek between horizontal bands of cloud. Beautiful.

Ronny got home at around 22:00 yesterday. That would not be a problem if he had left the office at 20:30 but he didn't. He left at 17:00. Today he couldn't even get out of his home town !!
I did have a few problems to get past the border but not all the crossings were blocked so I found my way to work with just losing about 10 minutes in the process. I did have to cross a few blockages that were not complete yet.

Following the news (long live the net) the blockades became more and more widespread. At one point all the border crossings were blocked. At half past four an agreement was signed by the unions, after consultation, that the blockades would be lifted. The problem is that one of the unions did not sign and intends to continue. So there will be some blockades left, mainly in the south of the country.
Going home in the evening I bypassed all the blockades by using some hardly used roads. I only met one convoy of trucks, obviously coming from a lifted blockade.

 

Oh, yes. at work.
I did solve the validation-16 problem on Tuesday but I didn't have time to test it then. So I did that now. And of course it didn't work. Val-16 is about minimum profit margins so I tested far under and far over but also on and close by the margin and the close-by was giving me problems. Until I found out that RPG rounds slightly different than my Psion.

 

I did get a bunch of mail last weekend and halfway trough the download things would stop with eleven messages left on the server. The communications window showed that there were still bits flowing in but also that bits were flowing out at about the same rate. Quite suspicious because the box was only supposed to be downloading. I had set things back to forwarding to the office, as usual during the week, but of course the mails already on the server stayed there. I tried again on Monday and Tuesday, to no avail and fired off a message to the postmaster. They refused to clear out my mailbox for me but told me how I could access my mail over the web. This was not possible until recently and their FAQ still indicates it is not possible.
So I got (and deleted) my errant mail. The problem turned out to be a rather big attachment so maybe if I had waited long enough the stump would have fallen into my mailbox. Maybe not however. The thing was less than 2M and that should arrive in less than 20 minutes.
While doing that I noticed that, by using the web mail I can answer and send to the daynotes gang list. I couldn't do that from the office because then my from address was not enlisted and all mailings to the list were rejected.


Windows is for people who want to do their job. Linux is for people who want to know what they are doing.

 

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MM-cclix     Friday

 

2000-07-15

 

127

Grey in the morning but after a shower at noon the sun breaks trough. It never gets bright though.

Together with Ronny I tested the code page solution. Everything seems to work so we didn't break anything. Of course we cannot actually test with a different code page but we don't use any characters that can cause problems in the parameters so things should be OK.
After that we must of course do the same again for version 9.

 

All the blockades in Belgium have been lifted but now the Dutch truckers get into action. They don't put blockades up for long however so things are more annoying than really problematic.
Yet.


What you do defines what you are. How you do it defines who you are.

 

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MM-cclx     Saturday

 

2000-09-16

 

406

It has been cool (well that is my idea of a top temperature of 14°C, everyone else around here calls it cold) and wet all day. The rain varied between very intense and slow drizzle. Often driven on by strong winds.

Shopping. The HP 840c printer for my brother arrived, only one week later than expected; the power supply hasn't arrived yet. It is indeed coming on foot from Taiwan, probably passing along one of the Himalayan passes along the silk route by now.

We had herring for lunch. Normally we buy smoked herring and then bake it over an open wood fire. Of course with the rain the open fire was out of the question so I set up the hibachi, filled it with charcoal and barbecued the herring. Novel but quite good.

I spent the afternoon helping my brother. He needed another load of flagstones, 75 this time bringing the total on 180, close to 500kg individually hand loaded and unloaded. On a second trip I loaded 850kg of sack with sand and cement and concrete. All in the poring rain.
Unbelievable as it may sound, I do love that. Not on a daily basis, but once in a wile getting a good physical workout won't do harm.

The annual fair started this evening with the traditional fireworks. This happened during one of the rare rainless moments. The normal fireworks is on four levels and all but the low by the ground stuff is visible from my attic window. There were low (200m) clouds and the medium fireworks stayed just under it. The high level exploded right in the clouds so the explosions were not directly visible but the clouds would light up magnificent and sometimes descending sparks would rained down out of the clouds.
I tried to take some shots but a digital camera is totally worthless for snapping fireworks. First off my camera is a cheap one with almost no manual setting. The silly box insisted on flashing every shot. More serious is the latency. By the time the shot is taken most of the fireworks has descended or extinguished. More expensive and recent cameras may be better but it will be a wile still before you can make good shots of fireworks.
Hell, it's even difficult with a normal camera.


If your boss thanks you for merely doing your job,
he is either very cynical or you just saved his skin.

 

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MM-cclxi     Sunday

 

2000-09-17

 

176

Overcast and drizzly. And cool at 14°C unwavering from 6:00 to 20:00.

A bit warm for running and drizzle doesn't cool well enough. I cut my running short by about a mile.

I go to Diest, helping Suzan with clearing the old house of her aunt. It is sold and will be demolished. As this is the last visit to the house I take a bunch of pictures which I print out in the afternoon.

Tom proposes some rules to apply to new daynoters which kicks off an animated discussion on the back channel. The end result is that no hard rules are laid down in stone (silicium = sandstone). That is the old unwritten rules remain in effect. The daynote gang is a community of people with overlapping interests. It is not a secret society or a club but more an organic fabric. People connected by a web. And caught in that same web.


That your boss doesn't stab you in the back either means he will shoot you or he needs you very badly.

 


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Swijsen © 2000

A day you don't learn something new is a wasted day.