The Official Status Thread
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@FrostCat said in The Official Status Thread:
I'm about to dig in my heels and say I can't do anything unless she gives me a spec and tells me specifically what's wrong. I bet "columns don't line up" is something stupid like "we need the DFI Account Number on the 6 record to be zero-filled instead of space-filled" or something equally retarded.
From (My sup) to the client ():
, my team is responsible for creating the output files, which the team is emailing to you. The team reached out to my team yesterday claiming that was not processing our files. I dug down through the email chain and found the following statement from :
“The information in the excel spreadsheets you are sending is illegible until each document is reformatted and it is taking extra time to process the requests.”
I reviewed the requirements sheet you recently sent over and notice no mention of how you expect the columns to be formatted (data type, etc.). Can you please provide some examples of the data which your team is having to reformat and the format you expect it in?
Also, can you explicitly spell out any other issues you are seeing with our file? We understand that the new file did not have the “#” in the header names, this is type of column header makes automating processes like these very finicky. Therefore, I’m hoping the column names is not the source of contention with this file.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:
the output files
The difference here is I'm (theoretically) producing to a standard file format that any US bank should accept[1]. The trivial differences you usually encounter, our application can be configured for (e.g., "should line 1, column 73 be a 1 or a blank").
[1] ETA: and has been producing since at least 1992, the earliest commit I found for the program that creates the file in question.
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@FrostCat said in The Official Status Thread:
to a standard file format
Yeah. This team has apparently given up on such a thing, and lets the client walk all over us with what they want in their file.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:
Status: Having seven WTDWTF tabs open and getting a notification sound is... loud.
Loud enough that I felt it from my laptop chassis despite having my headphones in on my phone.
Wonder why nobody's complained yet?
PLZ send screenshot of sound or will close E_NOREPRO
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@FrostCat said in The Official Status Thread:
@Tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:
Wonder why nobody's complained yet?
The rest of us don't hear those sounds because we're not using FF22.
All y'all do hear sounds BECAUSE you're not using FF22.
:ff22icon: FTW!
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@Lorne-Kates said in The Official Status Thread:
@Tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:
Status: Having seven WTDWTF tabs open and getting a notification sound is... loud.
Loud enough that I felt it from my laptop chassis despite having my headphones in on my phone.
Wonder why nobody's complained yet?
PLZ send screenshot of sound or will close E_NOREPRO
Edit: And Pinkie is out to go tag all the speakers...
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@Lorne-Kates said in The Official Status Thread:
All y'all do hear sounds BECAUSE you're not using FF22.
No, I hear sounds because I have two ears.
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@FrostCat said in The Official Status Thread:
@Lorne-Kates said in The Official Status Thread:
All y'all do hear sounds BECAUSE you're not using FF22.
No, I hear sounds because I have two ears.
Cat ears?
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@Lorne-Kates said in The Official Status Thread:
@FrostCat said in The Official Status Thread:
@Lorne-Kates said in The Official Status Thread:
All y'all do hear sounds BECAUSE you're not using FF22.
No, I hear sounds because I have two ears.
Cat ears?
No, Frost ears. Are you Attention?
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Status: Yay manual fiddling with files!
Stripping invisible characters:
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Status: ACH file squared away. My coworker calls me to come down to her office where she's GoToMeetinging our client. I have her show me the "bad" ACH file--it's got two rows with a space between the routing number and account numbers. "Oh, that's from this morning, we did an import where we lost the leading zero on two banks' routing numbers, but we've fixed that now." uh-huh. So I ask them to generate a fresh file, and my coworker says "let's just do it, programmers never trust us" and I prepare a smirk. We go to generate the file, and get a popup window asking us to pick a batch of records. My coworker says "pick batch #5" which, oddly, is the 5th one down in the dropdwon, and the client says "oh, maybe I picked the first one this morning." Uh-huh. She generates the file, opens it, no extra space.
Yeah, this is why we don't trust you. Not because we think you're liars, but because people make mistakes. I expect the file to be processed properly by the bank this time.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:
Stripping invisible characters
That's no invisible characters, that's a Unicode BOM.
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@FrostCat said in The Official Status Thread:
@Tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:
Stripping invisible characters
That's no invisible characters, that's a Unicode BOM.
Try explaining the concept of magical numbers to people who can't write formulas in Excel. Especially when the magic numbers are normally "hidden" from the user.
It's best to tell them I got rid of the problem, but for those who are curious I told them that.
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Status: Why would you do this, when everyone on the invite list (including the sender) is in UTC-7?!?!
Is it Outlook that's TRWTF this time?
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@Tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:
Try explaining the concept of magical numbers to people who can't write formulas in Excel.
"Do not open this file in Excel--it won't look right. You have to use Notepad". Bonus: you get to show them that the leading zeroes really aren't gone like they keep insisting. I've been having that conversation regularly for at least 15 years.
"Yes, I know you normally use Excel. Just trust me and use Notepad. Excel lies to you."
If you're lucky, you get to skip "yes, I can modify the file so Excel doesn't strip the leading zeroes, but then the import won't be able to process it. Yes, I know that's awful. It's Microsoft's fault, though. They're trying to be helpful, and usually that is, but this is a case where Excel does the wrong thing." If you're feeling brave you can try to have them import the file instead, so you can specify data types on the columns. I don't bother when Notepad works.
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@FrostCat said in The Official Status Thread:
"Do not open this file in Excel--it won't look right. You have to use Notepad". Bonus: you get to show them that the leading zeroes really aren't gone like they keep insisting. I've been having that conversation regularly for at least 15 years.
Actually, in this case it's almost the reverse: When opening in Excel, it handles everything "fine", including ignoring/omitting the BOM.
But, when they shove it into their intake thing, it barfs because it's (probably) manually parsing the bytes in the file and can't handle the BOM (they kept saying it's an issue with the header, first column, but it didn't dawn on me what it could have been until I HEXd it).In fact (in this specific case), leading zeros wasn't a problem at all.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:
Actually, in this case it's almost the reverse
Gotta find out why your export is emitting a bogus bom then, I guess.
@Tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:
In fact (in this specific case), leading zeros wasn't a problem at all.
That's unusual, but lucky for you.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:
BOM
Not only is it a BOM, it's a UTF-8 BOM, which is completely useless and not recommended. And as far as I know, the only software that insists on inserting it at the beginning of files is Notepad.
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@FrostCat said in The Official Status Thread:
Gotta find out why your export is emitting a bogus bom then, I guess.
@ben_lubar said in The Official Status Thread:
@Tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:
BOM
Not only is it a BOM, it's a UTF-8 BOM, which is completely useless and not recommended. And as far as I know, the only software that insists on inserting it at the beginning of files is Notepad.
It's because yours truly didn't know that specifying
Encoding.UTF8
for the string writer meant that C# adds the BOM, in contrast to not specifying it at all, which uses UTF8 but without a BOM.It has been fixed in Dev, but it will be a bit before I can get it promoted to Prod proper. In the meantime, I specified the encoding to be ASCII.
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Status:
You know there's already an easier way to only do things with files that exist, right?public void Main() { if (File.Exists(Dts.Variables["User::InputFullFilePath"].Value.ToString())) { Dts.TaskResult = (int)ScriptResults.Success; } else { Dts.TaskResult = (int)ScriptResults.Failure; } }
I'm not ever sure why this is being done, as the script is already inside a ForEach loop that lists files!
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Status:
catch (Exception) { throw; }
I suppose the only reason this is here so breakpoints?
Oh, in another place the entire method starts with
try {
and at the very end acatch (Exception ex) {var element = ex; }
, which isn't used at all.
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Status: Well, that wasn't a great day, commute-wise. Train was so late in both directions that it was stopped short of its destination. Fortunately when going into work, I guessed that that would happen (I know how that train company works) so I switched to another train before getting SOL, but that put me on the wrong side of the city and without any public transit going in the right direction. Doubly fortunately when going home, the station they stopped the express at was where I wanted to alight, but the train was still too late for me to make my connecting train; I watched it pull out just as we were coming to a stop.
What will
tomorrowtoday bring? :(Before anyone asks, commuting by car is currently a very bad idea because of several sets of major roadworks.
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@groo said in The Official Status Thread:
I think it's ok for a NFP to make up to 5 % profit
There's no hard rule at all. The rules cover what happens next with that profit; we can't pay shareholders (don't have any) but we can save the money for future investment. One of the main things that a small NFP is often doing is trying to raise enough cash through profits so that a bad few months won't make them bankrupt. Large NFPs are usually more financially stable, but they can potentially raise a lot more cash through loans too; it's not a small business that borrows over a billion bucks and I know that deals on that scale get done…
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@dkf said in The Official Status Thread:
The rules cover what happens next with that profit; we can't pay shareholders (don't have any)
Also, under US law, at least, I think if the company is ever liquidated, any proceeds that are left after paying creditors have to be given to other NFPs or otherwise used for permitted charitable purposes; they can't go to the company's principals, or anything like that.
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Status: my Android must not be up to date. I think this must be a tone-modifier, but it shows as a square:
👌🏻
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Status: 2+ months in to serving in my first board of directors position and I was asked today to serve on two more.
I am either doing something right, or I am the perfect rube. I would say the odds are even. 50/50
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Status: I think that went well!
Average heart rate: 118 at 2.4 mph.
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Status: octopus merge, but only 7 legs :(
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@HardwareGeek said in The Official Status Thread:
@dkf said in The Official Status Thread:
The rules cover what happens next with that profit; we can't pay shareholders (don't have any)
Also, under US law, at least, I think if the company is ever liquidated, any proceeds that are left after paying creditors have to be given to other NFPs or otherwise used for permitted charitable purposes; they can't go to the company's principals, or anything like that.
If that is true, it would be the first that I had heard of it.
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@Polygeekery said in The Official Status Thread:
@HardwareGeek said in The Official Status Thread:
@dkf said in The Official Status Thread:
The rules cover what happens next with that profit; we can't pay shareholders (don't have any)
Also, under US law, at least, I think if the company is ever liquidated, any proceeds that are left after paying creditors have to be given to other NFPs or otherwise used for permitted charitable purposes; they can't go to the company's principals, or anything like that.
If that is true, it would be the first that I had heard of it.
Turns out, it not only has to go to another non-profit, it has to go to another non-profit with a similar purpose (or to the Feds).
After the dissolving 501(c)(3) settles its debts, it may not transfer any remaining funds to shareholders or board members of the organization. When a 501(c)(3) organizes, it must include a provision in its charter defining how it will distribute any leftover assets when it dissolves. Generally, it must donate any remaining funds to another organization that has a similar mission to its own, a charitable organization, or to the federal government.
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Status: I think something is wrong with this SDIO Wi-Fi adapter...
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@Tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:
Are you my alt!?!?
Technically, yes, since we're all @boomzilla alts.
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STATUS:
Who the hell decided that this should be commented out by default on Debian!? So annoying.
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STATUS:
It has begun.
if client = "X" and product_id = "Y" then /* display custom-tailored data to cover up screwups */
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TIL:
Buying a dedicated server for virtualization is like getting a new shelf. You might not think you need all that space, but a month later it's full to the brim and you're strapped for space again.
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STATUS:
WTF, CentOS 7 doesn't seem to have a textual installation interface!? Do I have the wrong ISO? This is supposed to be a server-oriented distro, dammnit!
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@cartman82 said in The Official Status Thread:
WTF, CentOS 7 doesn't seem to have a textual installation interface!?
That would explain why my centos server VM has an Xserver running by default…
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@dkf said in The Official Status Thread:
That would explain why my centos server VM has an Xserver running by default…
The installer IS pretty neat. I just don't understand why the complication with graphical UI, when 99% of users will run servers.
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@cartman82 To do it right, the next steps should be:
- WTF? We need to keep that customer-specific shit on separate branches.
- WTF? We can't expect everyone to work on six branches at once, we should allocate them to separate teams.
- WTF, why do we have six different products which all do the same thing? Let's create a new unified product which will work for all customers.
- Bankruptcy.
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@clatter we are at step 3 right now. The rough estimation is for minimum of 2000 hours, for a system that would include the bare minimum functionality for 5-6 different business models.
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@Tsaukpaetra what does that do with stack traces?
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@ben_lubar said in The Official Status Thread:
BOM
Not only is it a BOM, it's a UTF-8 BOM, which is completely useless and not recommended. And as far as I know, the only software that insists on inserting it at the beginning of files is Notepad.
If you don't have that crap when opening a CSV file in Excel, You Are Gonna Have A Bad Time.
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@cartman82 said in The Official Status Thread:
what does that do with stack traces?
Keeps it as it was. If it was
catch (Exception e) { throw e }
the stack trace would be from the rethrow
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@Jaloopa said in The Official Status Thread:
Keeps it as it was. If it was
catch (Exception e)
{
throw e
}the stack trace would be from the rethrow
Very intuitive.
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@cartman82 said in The Official Status Thread:
STATUS:
It has begun.
if client = "X" and product_id = "Y" then /* display custom-tailored data to cover up screwups */
The best part will be when X has a different value on your dev machine's version of the product, and production's version of the product.
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@ben_lubar Change some whitespace, and remerge.
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@ben_lubar said in The Official Status Thread:
@Tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:
BOM
Not only is it a BOM, it's a UTF-8 BOM, which is completely useless and not recommended. And as far as I know, the only software that insists on inserting it at the beginning of files is Notepad.
Booty Object Model?
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@JazzyJosh said in The Official Status Thread:
Booty Object Model?
That makes only slightly less sense than the actual acronym, Byte Order Mark.
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@cartman82 said in The Official Status Thread:
If you don't have that crap when opening a CSV file in Excel, You Are Gonna Have A Bad Time.
You might well have a Bad Time anyway. Excel really doesn't want anything other than ASCII.
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