"The Real World" vs "School"...what I've learned...



  • @xaade said:

    ... How to think critically about a problem....

    Oh that's universally discouraged.

    Yeah, yeah, yeah, schools are evil, they suppress your real thoughts and capabilities, they're absolutely terrified of what would happen if they let you think freely.

    When you're 13. Then you grow up and realize that maybe you're just one of the millions of dumbfucks who think they're better than anyone else.

    @Jarry said:

    i have no data. but when i denormalize it's for convenience, not speed.

    That's what views are for. AFAIK denormalization generally involves physical data structures, not how they're presented.

    @GOG said:

    Next, suppose an Invoices table that holds all the invoices issued to clients and has a FK relationship with the clients table. The table contains, among other things, fields for the client's name, tax identifier and address.

    Oh, no! Data redundancy!

    Or is it?

    Either you enforce that the client's address on an invoice always matches the client's address in his own data (at which point you can just FK to the client and have all their data), or you don't (and you don't have data redundancy, since it's now "invoice address", not "client address").

    And in the second example, you can still FK to the Addresses table - only now your client-address relationship is not 1-1, it's 1-[0..1]. Which hardly matters.

    @darkmatter said:

    Data Warehousing

    Is a totally different beast, involving OLAP and shit. It has very little in common with your standard application database.

    @GOG said:

    The safest way to do so is to store this information verbatim - recreating the paper document in the database.

    Yes, and you can still store that information in the same place you store the client's information (the Address table), except it now has nothing to do with the client.

    A client can have an address. An invoice can have an address. Those two are not necessarily related, aside from having the same structure, which lets you store them in the same table.


  • kills Dumbledore

    @Maciejasjmj said:

    @Jarry said:
    i have no data. but when i denormalize it's for convenience, not speed.

    That's what views are for

    Careful with that. It's easy to make a second view reference the first for convenience, then another view might reference that, and before you know it, all your business logic is working on 13 level deep chains of views



  • @John2 said:

    ... knowledge that I've gained on the job surpasses what I have learned in the classroom to this point.

    I can agree from my own experience (I have a degree).

    For my own rant, when I graduated, everyone harped on about commercial experience, but I hear stories about employers who expect a degree.

    @John2 said:

    I got behind the curve a little.

    I worked in a place for over two and half years where I got about 9 months of experience repeated thrice. Fortunately I caught up in my next job.

    I seem to hop between redundancies and as far as I'm concerned it's working quite well for me because I catch up with technology each time.



  • @FrostCat said:

    Geez. And here I was just looking at them this afternoon with an eye towards possibly leasing one.

    What's "decent highway mileage?" My 1994 Ford Escort, which probably cost under $9K, got 30-35MPG on the highway, and didn't have any fancy anything.

    IRL I'm getting 33+mpg, a lot of open road to be sure, but I'm driving faster and accelerating harder than the ideal for efficiency...

    The maintenance items are pricey but rarely needed..., at least for me. The OEM tires made it, hmm, 70Kmiles, the OEM plugs to 140K (cough, oops). Finally wore out a set of shocks/struts at 235K...

    If it makes $$ sense to lease, that is you're not going to go over their yearly mileage limit... (10-15K probably) you may never run into these expenses.

    I like mine and would get another when I have to put this one out to pasture.
    (except my brood of children are bigger now, and the makers have added a lot of cool new features, so I'll still shop around...but mine was a definite win)


    Filed under: stupid new computer and new browser.. atuo spell checking is a :barrier: to using this forum . (I can beat it sometimes , it looks like.)


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @ijij said:

    If it makes $$ sense to lease, that is you're not going to go over their yearly mileage limit... (10-15K probably) you may never run into these expenses.

    Yeah, that occurred to me after I posted, so I'll still consider one, I guess.



  • @Maciejasjmj said:

    Yeah, yeah, yeah, schools are evil, they suppress your real thoughts and capabilities, they're absolutely terrified of what would happen if they let you think freely.

    When you're 13. Then you grow up and realize that maybe you're just one of the millions of dumbfucks who think they're better than anyone else.

    Brainwashing isn't a problem because people and ideas aren't unique.

    Nice strawman.



  • @xaade said:

    Brainwashing isn't a problem because people and ideas aren't unique.

    Stop putting things in my quotes that I didn't say. What brainwashing?

    Whenever I hear about "schools brainwashing kids", or "suppressing freedom of thought", it's always from rebellious teenagers who are Just Plain Wrong, but instead of admitting failure, they just expect everyone around to conform to them and their thought patterns.

    Guess what - neither schools, nor real life work that way.



  • Should I forward you the video about the feminist talking about how she will indoctrinate her male children to promote women's careers above ANYTHING ELSE, even before their own aspirations and needs for her own grandchildren.

    She relented having a son, because she wouldn't be able to support her "daughter" through the rough life she's had to live. But wait, I can indoctrinate my son to worship women.... all is not lost.

    But oh, this woman is in women's studies, and she considers herself an educator.

    Yeah, I want you no where near my children.



  • So? Teachers are people. Some people like to push their agenda instead of doing their jobs properly. Like in every other area of life.

    Does the fact that some software dwcelopers are jerks make software development evil?


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Maciejasjmj said:

    Does the fact that some software dwcelopers are jerks make software development evil?

    Of course not, but if an organization that develops software is predominantly jerks, it's probably a jerky organization.



  • Luckily there are other organizations you can deal with if them being a jerk bothers you.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    Yes, but if most / all are, it can be a problem. Especially if the alternatives aren't convenient or affordable or otherwise of lower quality.



  • @Maciejasjmj said:

    Luckily there are other organizations you can deal with if them being a jerk bothers you.

    Except that the system is built such that middle class people prop up the public education system for poor people, and are therefore forced to participate.

    Trust me, the moment they offer vouchers, the middle class is going to go private, for all the reasons discussed above.

    And whether you think this is good or bad, doesn't change the fact that people are having their children subjected to double-speak / thought-control.


  • :belt_onion:

    You seem to have trouble differentiating between "a person" and "everyone".



  • It's like that discussion in Clerks about the contractors building the Death Star!



  • How so?

    If I'm forced to participate in a school where there is 1 bad teacher, I'm forced to listen to 1 bad teacher.

    I'm not saying the whole system is corrupt.

    I'm saying I'm forced to participate.

    They can't just focus the school system on math and other abstract ideas?

    Have you tried to get a school to let a bad teacher go?

    Let me drum up the countless articles where school kids were subject to "sex education" from organizations like "planned parenthood" where topics discussed wouldn't have allowed the kid into a theater if it were a movie.



  • @xaade said:

    double-speak

    Referencing Orwell outside of literary context is the first symptom of paranoia.

    You guys seem to have taken a single example of a person abusing their position of power (whoop-de-doo, now look outside your window and tell me you've discovered America), and somehow have extrapolated that feminazi liberal agenda happens nigh everywhere and is an inherent quality of the whole system.



  • @xaade said:

    to let a bad teacher go?

    What you claim might have been true years ago, but now, when entitled parents threat lawsuits because little sack of shit named Timmy or Johnny got a bad grade, and he's such a smart kid and the teacher bullies, hates and brainwashes him?

    Teachers get sacked over the smallest things on a daily basis.


  • :belt_onion:

    You have made so many leaps here... your last statement has so little to do with your first post that I'm not even sure what you're talking about anymore. A video of a moron parent wants to teach her son to be pro-feminist morphs into some argument about how schools have a bad teacher that is brainwashing you and you're powerless to stop it?

    You are very much against prayer in schools too right?


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @Maciejasjmj said:

    A client can have an address. An invoice can have an address. Those two are not necessarily related, aside from having the same structure, which lets you store them in the same table.

    True for addresses, but not for client details, such as name and NIP. We could, of course, separate those from the client data as well, but down that road we're likely to end up with the main clients table containing but a primary key referenced by other tables containing the actual data. 😄

    @Maciejasjmj said:

    Either you enforce that the client's address on an invoice always matches the client's address in his own data (at which point you can just FK to the client and have all their data), or you don't (and you don't have data redundancy, since it's now "invoice address", not "client address").

    Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner!

    Frankly, I'm don't intend to further comment on the design in question (especially, since I had no hand in it and am not particularly sold on all the details). I'm simply using it as an example of how textbook knowledge (normalization, in this case) needs to be applied to the problem domain and the requirements of said domain.

    In fact, the key integrity requirement is that the invoice data stored in the database is an accurate reflection of the invoice as issued. A client reference is entirely optional. As, frankly, is where the invoice data is stored, because there's no integrity requirement between invoice data and anything else.

    AFAIC, the choice of schema at this point should be determined by "what's easiest to work with" - which, I believe, is the textbook case for denormalization.



  • @GOG said:

    AFAIC, the choice of schema at this point should be determined by "what's easiest to work with" - which, I believe, is the textbook case for denormalization.

    You are still wrong.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @blakeyrat said:

    You are still wrong.

    As you say, Master.



  • @Maciejasjmj said:

    A client can have an address. An invoice can have an address. Those two are not necessarily related, aside from having the same structure, which lets you store them in the same table.

    WARNING: Real World Example Ahead

    We have a client[1] that requires us to send all their invoices to a third party company. Based on communications I've had with the client[2], the third party receives all invoices for our client, and then packages them up each month for our client into a single invoice. The client then pays the third party, and the third party then pays each individual invoice. This is further complicated as each invoice must indicate, by location code and address, which client facility the invoice is being billed to. So each invoice has two addresses on it.

    Further, as a shipping company, there are numerous vendors associated with this client. We frequently pick up shipments from these vendors to be delivered at one of the client's many facilities, or pick up from the client to be delivered to a vendor. As a result, we have the following addresses associated with the client:

    1. Client facility addresses. Currently several dozen locations scattered around the world.
    2. Client invoice addresses. No consistent correlation to #1.
    3. Vendor addresses. Currently several dozen more addresses.
    4. Third party invoicing company. Just the one address here.

    With all those addresses for one company, we can't rely on an address history as @blakeyrat suggested. We have to keep the data on record exactly as it was when the documents were created, just like @GOG described.

    [1] Actually, this kind of setup exists for a few of our clients, so it isn't really just a one-off.
    [2] The invoices are sent electronically, so I sometimes have a conversation with the client and the third party to resolve communication issues, usually on the third party's side.



  • @abarker said:

    We have to keep the data on record exactly as it was when the documents were created, just like @GOG described.

    You don't have to.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    You don't have to.

    You want to come explain that when we get audited then? The hauling industry is heavily regulated, and we have to keep records for 7 years, minimum, in the US.



  • @abarker said:

    You want to come explain that when we get audited then? The hauling industry is heavily regulated, and we have to keep records for 7 years, minimum, in the US.

    Jesus Christ, how do you people remember how to breathe? OH NOES MOD WARNINGS OH NOES OH NOES

    I'm not saying you don't have to retain the records. I'm saying you don't need to denormalize the table in order to retain the records. Criminy.



  • I've actually been growing a collection of used copies of my college books and assorted classics in the field. It's been pretty useful.


  • :belt_onion:

    @abarker said:

    We have to keep the data on record exactly as it was when the documents were created, just like @GOG described.

    @blakeyrat said:

    I'm saying you don't need to denormalize the table in order to retain the records.

    If they have to keep it exactly the same, wouldn't that specifically require that they do not denormalize it?


    Filed Under: Pee Dent... or Peed Ant?


  • @boomzilla said:

    @accalia said:
    ... How to think critically about a problem....

    "The Real World" doesn't seem to teach this either. I'm not sure how it's taught or if it's even generally possible.

    Closest I ever found was a course on study (yes, most are blechhh, but I actually found one with useful information) went something like this:

    Steps to learning:
    1) Duplication - actually assimilating what was being presented. If it's a red brick wall, you get a red brick wall in your mind - not an idea of what line you're going to drop on your next potential date or some other off-the-wall idea (bad joke, I know 😛 ).
    2) Understanding - you're now aware of the fact that you're looking at a red brick wall, and what that means (mortar and brick compose it, it has a certain solidity, dimensions, etc.)
    3) Judgement - this is the part that's difficult to teach, and in my mind critical to critical problem solving. In the case of the red brick wall, factors such as goals/purposes come into play (is it in the way? If so, do we go around it, get a sledgehammer to knock it down [oh, skipped step 2, understanding? That spoon you're going to try to chip the wall away with isn't going to work so well...], dig under it, whatever. Is it part of a home you're building? Ok, where do we get more bricks and mortar, etc.) Examples can help illustrate the point sometimes.

    IIRC, the stress of the lesson was that duplication, then understanding, must take place before one can have judgement. Further, it was a road to judgement (no guarantees!) (INB4 getting judged :P ).



  • @Placeholder said:

    A professor I had for a C course couldn't even teach functions correctly.

    My C professor read the book to us and made us enter the demo examples in the book into the computer and run them for our labs. I once noticed a circuit on which the program was supposedly modeled after, but the formula was wrong (had a divide by zero in it). When I tried to point this out during class, I was told to "sit down and shut up."

    Anyone care to take a guess what happened in the lab?


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @redwizard said:

    Anyone care to take a guess what happened in the lab?

    Professor told you to sit down and shut the fuck up?



  • @boomzilla said:

    Professor told you to sit down and shut the fuck up?

    LOL

    Actually, he wouldn't even look at me after all the programs crashed... ;-)

    EDIT: for the record, I didn't try calling him on it. I did get an "A" for the class in the end, to his credit (or mis-credit?)



  • @blakeyrat said:

    I'm not saying you don't have to retain the records. I'm saying you don't need to denormalize the table in order to retain the records. Criminy.

    Shit man, when someone reads one of your posts and makes a contradictory post it's all

    @blakeyrat said:

    Shut the hell up you moron, you don't know what you're talking about.

    Even when they are right. Yet when the tables are flipped and you make the contradictory post, and get told you're wrong, we get:

    @blakeyrat said:

    Shut the hell up you moron, you don't know what you're talking about.

    Maybe you should try accepting that sometimes you are ucking wrong. Then maybe people will start treating you as something other than an butthole.



  • I accept when I'm wrong.

    I haven't been wrong in this thread.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    I accept when I'm wrong.

    According to you, you haven't been wrong on the internet.



  • You are wrong.

    I admitted I was wrong on one of the threads here just a couple weeks ago. I can't remember which one specifically though.



  • I'm willing to accept evidence to the contrary. I've just never seen you admit you were wrong.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @blakeyrat said:

    I'm saying you don't need to denormalize the table in order to retain the records.

    🚎 You also aren't saying why we should normalize it in the first place 🚎



  • Continuing the discussion from Forum Moderator WTF:

    @Sunstorm said:

    I think my thoughts on this forum may be redundant with what some other people said in this thread, especially with tster. I always loved TDWTF because it was an interesting place, with informative content that was funny, satirical, and despite being aimed at pointing out and having a laugh at the horrible flaws of our peers, it was friendly. And up to some time ago, the forums were more of just the same, and it was awesome.

    Lately, I just stopped bothering reading the forums, because those attributes seem to have been replaced by a giant ocean of troll piss. I've started to notice this since around the time SpectateSwamp showed up. He was amusing for a while, and I was expecting him to just get banned for the obvious trollery and everyone would get on with our lives. But instead, he was encouraged to keep his trolling, with his threads growing to gargantuan proportions, completely composed by people deliberately and admittedly "feeding the troll".

    That seems to have sent out a massive signal to everyone that trolling is good and will make you popular, and that feeding trolls is also fine. And it all went downhill from there. The trolling increased like crazy, not only just in quantity, but in "quality". Right now, we get much bolder obvious trolls, and we also got trolls like MPS, who disguises as a member, and trolls by using this subtle passive-agressive approach that's just not trollish enough to label him an outright troll, but is even more unpleasant, because it's subversive, and not amusing.

    I don't want to bash on you, MPS, or single you out, but you're often the most prominent example. I honestly wondered why weren't you banned still when the whole Swamp thing was at it's start. I figured you were coming from the same place as he was with the way you were sounding, as if you were laughing at all of us for putting up with you so much. I thought you would go away when Swamp did, but I guess that never hapened either. It's only later, when the Swamp thread lost steam, that I started noticing that you actually participated in topics for purposes other than trolling. This might be not like you at all, but that's the impression I got, which is hopefully unbiased since I have no grudges or anything towards you.

    And all of this eventually evolved into a whole bunch more people acting in exactly the same way. And now the forum is overflowing with it so much that I can hardly find the original awesomeness of the forum amongst the people viciously pissing on eachother over arguments that are boring and unfunny to anyone else that aren't those people. Trolls are everywhere, just waiting to jump on any slightest hint of flamebait and arguing not about some interesting technological tidbit, but about like how should one treat the moron OP, how should posts be made, what style of quotation should be used, and how the other guy should STFU with their arguments about the above things. It adds a grand total of ZERO of good content to the thread, it's not amusing to anyone but the handful of people involved, and only helps to drown out the signal with more noise.

    I liked it more when the arguments were about how much a language sucks, and not about how retarded the people who use the language are. When the rule wasn't "if noone tells him he's stupid, how will he know?", this forum was a lot more pleasant. As it is, having to parse through and ignore all the crapfest to find the good content has raised the level of effort for this forum too much for me to care.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @redwizard said:

    Anyone care to take a guess what happened in the lab?

    Ooh, I had that happen in high school, only it was math class and a substitute teacher. After spending several minutes on a 10th-grade or so problem, one student asked if the teacher was sure he knew what he was doing. He didn't find that funny at all.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @blakeyrat said:

    I accept when I'm wrong.

    Stopping replying to people who have proved you wrong is not how most people think of acceptance.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @FrostCat said:

    After spending several minutes on a 10th-grade or so problem, one student asked if the teacher was sure he knew what he was doing. He didn't find that funny at all.

    That's OK; I'll find it funny on his behalf. I'm generous like that. 😇

    (Anyone teaching round here? Test your lab scripts at least 10 minutes before going into the class, so that you can at least know where most of the :wtf:s are buried. Being blindsided makes you look like a dumbass, and you'll deserve it if you get in that situation.)



  • And figure out how to use the projector with your laptop BEFORE class starts.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @blakeyrat said:

    And figure out how to use the projector with your laptop BEFORE class starts.

    Oh yes. That's a classic. Also applies to meetings and especially external review meetings and presentations to funders. Nothing makes you fluff things more than looking like a dumbass because you can't make your computer show your slides.

    BTDTGTT-S


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @dkf said:

    That's OK; I'll find it funny on his behalf.

    Oh, the rest of the students did. Unfortunately, he kinda snapped at her. nothing horrible, just "do you know what _you're doing?" in a sarcastic tone. These days, it'd probably trigger people and get him fired.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    And figure out how to use the projector with your laptop BEFORE class starts.

    There's usually no time in secondary education.

    However, there's no excuse for that in business.
    If it's important enough that multiple need to listen, it's important enough for the presenter to check before the meeting with enough time to fix it.



  • As a student I couldn't really afford all the books at their retail price, but Amazon 3rd party had a majority of them for $1 plus shipping. Saved me a lot on books I didn't read much of.
    The CS books on the other hand always were the latest edition and there were no cheap used copies yet. Pissed me off as the previous edition would be $1.
    Some people used those and got a little off on some assignments when the question/answers changed.



  • @xaade said:

    Except that the system is built such that middle class people prop up the public education system for poor people, and are therefore forced to participate.

    Are you insane? That's how taxes work. The poor don't have the money to build roads, staff schools, pay people to collect the garbage, and the other thousand things that it takes to have a decent civilization. If school vouchers happen the way you are hoping, then everyone who makes more than the average income of their community will take that money and put it in a private school. The result will be all of the poor people in public school funded only by poor people - which will lead to a never ending cycle of poverty that creates despondence and crime.


  • BINNED

    INB4 socialism!


    Filed under: We all know where this is heading...



  • Nearly every model has some element of socialism. In the US, the low-level infrastructure stuff is handled the same way it is in a socialist country, except at a much more local level.

    Objecting to paying more tax and getting less because you aren't poor is objecting to society.


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