Are the posted questions getting worse?

  • *sigh*
    It never rains, but it pours...
    So last night I finally got off my butt to cut my lawn for the first time since around September.  Lawnmower fired right up, started cutting.  Get around to the side of the house, running the mower up nice and tight to the house so there's less to deal with, with the weed whacker, when *GRUNCH*
    Mower keeps going, sounded like I hit a clump of dirt maybe, except there's none there.
    Pull the mower back, notice what looks like a piece of wire or cable sticking up, maybe I hit a bit the TV install guy dropped last year when we switched providers?
    Stop the mower, get close to check...
    Yeah, if only.
    Turns out the fiber line for our internet had worked up out of the ground a good couple inches by the house, enough to get caught by the mower blade (but not enough to get wrapped into it)

    So, sometime today, the repair guy is coming out, according to the support rep the wife talked to we shouldn't be charged for the repair, so at least there's that.
    Of course, I kind of feel sorry for the repair guy because:
    A)  It's actual fiber-optic line, so it's a bear to work on
    B)  If he has to re-run to the junction box, it's a good 100-200ft
    C)  It's supposed to rain all day, which means he's going to need to tent up wherever he needs to work on the ends...

  • Jeff Moden - Thursday, May 4, 2017 6:53 AM

    Overall, I was with the company for 15 years before someone made me an offer I just couldn't refuse.

    First company 7 years, current company 34 years and not had an offer I couldn't refuse :blink:

    Although got an email today for a possible .NET lead for 75K (UK) :Whistling:

    Far away is close at hand in the images of elsewhere.
    Anon.

  • Ed Wagner - Wednesday, May 3, 2017 6:17 PM

    Lynn Pettis - Wednesday, May 3, 2017 3:36 PM

    Could be, but if it is, why doesn't he/they answer questions here?

    Maybe they got sick of people asking for more information.  In my experience, SO was more of a quick, one-line answer forum back when I used it several years ago.  When I posted something that was flagged as too detailed and the one-line answer marked as the answer wasn't the best approach, I turned my back and never looked back.

    It may have started out right but it the people that have become "monitors" are (IMHO) silly, opinionated, and compelled to earn points rather than to serve the community.  I've seen many examples where the original question had been so edited that the original purpose of the question was something totally different and that's after people had correctly answered the original question.  The opinions of the monitors that "close" posts have become silly, pompous, and arrogant and yet they don't fix the bad answers on good posts.  The original purpose of SO has been largely destroyed by people interested in points and, apparently, their "earned" privileges to totally screw with people.

    As a wise man once said, "Half of all that is written [there -JBM] is wrong and the other half is written in such a fashion as you can't tell if it's right or wrong". πŸ˜‰

    --Jeff Moden


    RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
    First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
    ________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

    Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.


    Helpful Links:
    How to post code problems
    How to Post Performance Problems
    Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

  • Jeff Moden - Thursday, May 4, 2017 7:16 AM

    As a wise man once said, "Half of all that is written [there -JBM] is wrong and the other half is written in such a fashion as you can't tell if it's right or wrong". πŸ˜‰

    See also: Sturgeon's Law - "90% of everything is crap."

    Thomas Rushton
    blog: https://thelonedba.wordpress.com

  • Jeff Moden - Thursday, May 4, 2017 6:21 AM

    Heh... too funny.  But, no.  The BI Developers aren't oxymorons.  It's just BI (IMHO) that frequently is.  I've seen too many people be thrilled with pretty stuff and the ability to quickly stack and restack pivots and a whole bunch of other information and still come to the wrong conclusion.  It cost 1,500 out of 3,000 people their livelihood at a company I once worked for because the officers of the company (lowest level all the way to the GM) didn't listen to what the data was saying even when someone tried to point it out.  Using the same "pretty pictures" they were using, I predicted the month and year they would need to do the layoffs two years ahead of time and couldn't get anyone to listen.

    I've found the definition of Business Intelligence to be much like the definitions of DBA and Agile.  They differ from company to company and, often, from person to person within the same company.

  • jasona.work - Thursday, May 4, 2017 7:03 AM

    *sigh*
    It never rains, but it pours...
    So last night I finally got off my butt to cut my lawn for the first time since around September.  Lawnmower fired right up, started cutting.  Get around to the side of the house, running the mower up nice and tight to the house so there's less to deal with, with the weed whacker, when *GRUNCH*
    Mower keeps going, sounded like I hit a clump of dirt maybe, except there's none there.
    Pull the mower back, notice what looks like a piece of wire or cable sticking up, maybe I hit a bit the TV install guy dropped last year when we switched providers?
    Stop the mower, get close to check...
    Yeah, if only.
    Turns out the fiber line for our internet had worked up out of the ground a good couple inches by the house, enough to get caught by the mower blade (but not enough to get wrapped into it)

    So, sometime today, the repair guy is coming out, according to the support rep the wife talked to we shouldn't be charged for the repair, so at least there's that.
    Of course, I kind of feel sorry for the repair guy because:
    A)  It's actual fiber-optic line, so it's a bear to work on
    B)  If he has to re-run to the junction box, it's a good 100-200ft
    C)  It's supposed to rain all day, which means he's going to need to tent up wherever he needs to work on the ends...

    That's a rough one.  Being without internet nowadays takes a lot of thing offline.

    Like you said, it pours.  It's supposed to rain through tomorrow.  The up-side to that is that you won't be mowing for a couple of days.

  • jasona.work - Thursday, May 4, 2017 7:03 AM

    *sigh*
    It never rains, but it pours...
    So last night I finally got off my butt to cut my lawn for the first time since around September.  Lawnmower fired right up, started cutting.  Get around to the side of the house, running the mower up nice and tight to the house so there's less to deal with, with the weed whacker, when *GRUNCH*
    Mower keeps going, sounded like I hit a clump of dirt maybe, except there's none there.
    Pull the mower back, notice what looks like a piece of wire or cable sticking up, maybe I hit a bit the TV install guy dropped last year when we switched providers?
    Stop the mower, get close to check...
    Yeah, if only.
    Turns out the fiber line for our internet had worked up out of the ground a good couple inches by the house, enough to get caught by the mower blade (but not enough to get wrapped into it)

    I cut the cable line years ago spring planting a bush. Had no idea that it was buried near the house. No indication as there was another line that came in above ground.

    And I was leaving the next day for a trip, with an infant and 5year old at home. My wife was not pleased.

  • Steve Jones - SSC Editor - Thursday, May 4, 2017 8:17 AM

    I cut the cable line years ago spring planting a bush. Had no idea that it was buried near the house. No indication as there was another line that came in above ground.

    And I was leaving the next day for a trip, with an infant and 5year old at home. My wife was not pleased.

    Thankfully it was just our internet I killed, and I was able to get my "fix" (mostly) using a cell-connected tablet.

    Of course, if I killed both and had to take off for a trip, I suspect my wife would be less than happy with me...

  • Jason A. Long - Wednesday, May 3, 2017 3:46 PM

    Apparently there are far too few people who know how to do green bar in an SSRS tablix...
    So here's how...

    1) Go to the Report Properties dialog box and select the Code tab and paste in the following code...

    Private bOddRow As Boolean
    '*************************************************************************
    ' -- Display green-bar type color banding in detail rows
    ' -- Call from BackGroundColor property of all detail row textboxes
    ' -- Set Toggle True for first item, False for others.
    '*************************************************************************
    Function AlternateColor(ByVal OddColor As String, _
       ByVal EvenColor As String, ByVal Toggle As Boolean) As String
      If Toggle Then bOddRow = Not bOddRow
      If bOddRow Then
       Return OddColor
      Else
       Return EvenColor
      End If
    End Function

    2) Put focus on the left-most cell in the details section and look for the "BackgroudColor" property in the properties section and paste in the following expression...

    =Code.AlternateColor("#d7e4f4", "Transparent", True)

    For all the remaining columns (2 - N) do the same thing but use a slightly different expression... (switch from "True" to "False")

    =Code.AlternateColor("#d7e4f4", "White", False)

    Congrats, you now have legit "green bar"... On in this case (using #d7e4f4) "blue bar".

    It's been awhile since I worked with SSRS, but I did not have to write a function to accomplish this.  I vaguely remember that you just had to put a formula in the conditional formatting for the row.

    Drew

    J. Drew Allen
    Business Intelligence Analyst
    Philadelphia, PA

  • drew.allen - Thursday, May 4, 2017 12:46 PM

    Jason A. Long - Wednesday, May 3, 2017 3:46 PM

    Apparently there are far too few people who know how to do green bar in an SSRS tablix...
    So here's how...

    1) Go to the Report Properties dialog box and select the Code tab and paste in the following code...

    Private bOddRow As Boolean
    '*************************************************************************
    ' -- Display green-bar type color banding in detail rows
    ' -- Call from BackGroundColor property of all detail row textboxes
    ' -- Set Toggle True for first item, False for others.
    '*************************************************************************
    Function AlternateColor(ByVal OddColor As String, _
       ByVal EvenColor As String, ByVal Toggle As Boolean) As String
      If Toggle Then bOddRow = Not bOddRow
      If bOddRow Then
       Return OddColor
      Else
       Return EvenColor
      End If
    End Function

    2) Put focus on the left-most cell in the details section and look for the "BackgroudColor" property in the properties section and paste in the following expression...

    =Code.AlternateColor("#d7e4f4", "Transparent", True)

    For all the remaining columns (2 - N) do the same thing but use a slightly different expression... (switch from "True" to "False")

    =Code.AlternateColor("#d7e4f4", "White", False)

    Congrats, you now have legit "green bar"... On in this case (using #d7e4f4) "blue bar".

    It's been awhile since I worked with SSRS, but I did not have to write a function to accomplish this.  I vaguely remember that you just had to put a formula in the conditional formatting for the row.

    Drew

    I use the following in the properties:
    =iif(RowNumber(Nothing) Mod 2, “LightBlue", "White")

  • > That's a rough one. Being without internet nowadays takes a lot of thing offline.

    Nowadays it's not so easy to lose internet.

    That's why those 3-4 days long hiking trips are so popular amongst IT guys.

    With no mobile reception out there in the mountains you may be sure no emergency will interrupt your sleep.

    _____________
    Code for TallyGenerator

  • Thom A - Thursday, May 4, 2017 3:18 AM

    Beatrix Kiddo - Thursday, May 4, 2017 3:09 AM

    Stack Overflow is pretty much unusable.

    I', really not a fan of it either. I remember finding it quite difficult to get along with.Trying to paste code in and it telling me I had to indent it all (it was), so ended up asking questoins without my code. Unsurprisingly, I was asked for the code in question, which I couldn't paste! I even tried uploading it else where and putting the link in my post, but you had to have "reputation" to put hyperlinks in your posts...

    I've never posted again, and never use it unless it comes up in a Google search. First Impressions are everything πŸ˜›

    At least here I can paste my SQL (although SSC takes my formatting and spits it after it's had a nice blend πŸ™ ).

    SO is awful, it's morphing into facebook, attracting the very worst features of both. A nice contrast (distinct from the one you're currently reading) is this one from an alleged competitor.

    β€œWrite the query the simplest way. If through testing it becomes clear that the performance is inadequate, consider alternative query forms.” - Gail Shaw

    For fast, accurate and documented assistance in answering your questions, please read this article.
    Understanding and using APPLY, (I) and (II) Paul White
    Hidden RBAR: Triangular Joins / The "Numbers" or "Tally" Table: What it is and how it replaces a loop Jeff Moden

  • So a little work related (sorry)...

    Log shipping job failed, due to primary pointing to wrong drive and it ran out of space.
    In the past I've just re-run the wizard and re-created the log shipping with the new path.
    Thought, there must be a better way... Found all the built in stored procs for log shipping config. How have I missed them all these years? πŸ™‚
    Now waiting for it to catch up from last night.

    In other news, Marillion Weekend no 3 (well no 2 for me) was overall good. Friday was plagued with tech issues including blowing the main stage lights out. And Steve H (singer) forgetting words!
    Saturday was good. Not sure how many people didn't know what the theme was - album from 87, album from 2017. A game of two halves as they say.
    On the Sunday there had been a plan for the audience to wear finger lights and raise their hands at a pre-demined point. I only found out on the night but luckily was given a set of lights! It worked really well. Over half the audience did their bit and the band knew nothing about it! So were almost bowled over when it happened.

    And I did manage to get an Iron Maiden ticket for last night. Very good. Glad I made the 4 and bit hour round trip :O

    Rodders...

  • Iron Maiden tickets blimey that takes me back. Saw them a good few years ago twice at the Birmingham NEC and once as a student in Portsmouth Guildhall. Was excellent especially as the Guildhall upper seats overlooked the stage so you got to see the show and what was happening behind the scenes at the same time. Was funny watching some moron nearly fall off the balcony trying to catch a drumstick.

  • The coworker and I were talking this a.m. about how annoyed we are that a different department which sends files to us didn't bother to tell us that a file couldn't send because they were having a problem connecting to the landing zone. This has happened before and always we have to realize we're missing the files, email or IM them to ask about the files, then they "research the issue" as if they have no way of knowing when one of their processes fails.

    On our side, we have to have a zillion alerts, plus manual job checks, to verify everything is working because if we don't keep track of this stuff, our butts will be raked over the coals.

    Does anyone else have this problem? Doesn't seem logical that if you're sending out data to be consumed by other processes in other divisions, you should be responsible for verifying everything worked correctly on your end before your customer notices there's a problem?

    Brandie Tarvin, MCITP Database AdministratorLiveJournal Blog: http://brandietarvin.livejournal.com/[/url]On LinkedIn!, Google+, and Twitter.Freelance Writer: ShadowrunLatchkeys: Nevermore, Latchkeys: The Bootleg War, and Latchkeys: Roscoes in the Night are now available on Nook and Kindle.

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