Oh dear, it's time to pit my boss again

The BBQ Pit
1

OK; background: I’m in IT development and support and I work for a guy that is very much into computers and has a history of writing bespoke applications for the company and their clients.

Today, the issue is: backups- I was explaining the benefits of a rolling backup set, suggesting that the seven-day rolling set I have implemented (plus month and year-end archived backups) was really considered the minimum acceptable level across most of the industry - he tells me that this is all wrong and he has written to our clients in the past and told them that all you should ever keep is your last backup, because the hassle involved in restoring to a backup older than yesterday negates all benefit of having it.

I try to explain that a) sometimes a problem doesn’t become apparent until a day or two after it has actually occurred and b)quite apart from when they need to be restored, historical backups are a diagnostic resource - one can scrutinise them to see how things have changed over the course of time, and anway, if you keep a single backup volume, there is the potential to discover that, halfway through overwriting yesterday with today’s data, that today’s files are shagged, by which time it is too late to get back yesterday’s

But no, I’m not making any headway - the actual problem came up because of my concern about people fudging the Windows system date (which they do if they want to postpone a month end into the first few days of the next calendar month - they set the system date back and key some more invoices, then do the same again the next day and so on) - If you have a run of five days where the system date is the same, the date-stamps on all the files in the backup will be the same, furthermore, because the backup process is date-aware, it wants to put today’s backup into the same receptacle as yesterday’s and has to be overridden manually, which sometimes doesn’t happen and you end up with a bunch of backups, all with the same date stamp, all in the wrong day, or over the top of each other and before long, nobody has the slightest fucking clue what is going on and which is the best, most recent file set.

But you see, this is why we shouldn’t keep seven day’s worth of backups, because of the potential for error.

I mean, What. The. Fucking. WHAT?!

This week has been the worst ever; I’m tasked with the job of rolling out a suite of software that I didn’t have much of a hand in developing (but will be expected to support), which is just so boneheadedly wrong in its approach to so many areas and is unreliable.
If this wasn’t bad enough, I have to endure periodic conversational pronouncements of utter bollocks such as “See, this is why people are moving away from the flaky relational database model and SQL” and “Windows XP is just a shell - it’s still the same old DOS code being run underneath” and “I want you to set up a one-way network connection”

Gaaaah!

I think it may be time to look around for pastures new.

Incidentally, not ten minutes after the conversation about backups, a situation arose with one of our clients (where I have also implemented a seven-day rolling backup set), where the purest remedy (and the one my boss wanted)would have been to restore back to last Friday evening (although how he expected to achieve this with a single, overwrite-each-time backup, I haven’t the slightest idea.

2

Can I mention the legal requirement (in the U.K.) to retain 6 years’ worth of certain types of data?

3

We have that bit covered - the historic data is part of the system database itself, which is the thing being backed up - the seven day set is for recovery mostly.

4

If your boss is worried that keeping track of backups will be too hard for his intended customers, then his application should keep track of the backups for them.

AARRRGGGH. That’s one of my biggest pet peeves. SO many fucking people diss relational databases, and often those same people really don’t have the slightest fucking clue how to use them correctly.

Disclaimer: I’m an Oracle DBA, this may make me want people to use relational databases. :slight_smile:

5

Isn’t messing with the invoice dates illegal?

Computer based financial programs use the system’s date, so it is easy to change it(and the program has no way of knowing the real time/date), but stand-alone things like cash registers have the date set once and each change is logged.

6

Probably it is unethical, at least; it is done primarily to grab a few of March’s orders into February - making them due for payment a month earlier.

7

Quite apart from the fact that people simply aren’t moving away from relational databases and SQL - where would they go if they were moving away?

8

Valhalla. Thor has been very explicit in his banning of relational databases. Odin will smite you for even saying SQ, forget the L.

9

The one that really gets me is the WinXP/DOS thing - he simply will not accept that Windows is now an operating system in its own right (which, as a software developer, is just a horrendous thing to be in denial over); a typical argument on the topic goes like this:

Him: Windows XP is just a shell - it’s still the same old DOS code being run underneath
Me: No, I think that’s incorrect; Windows is running its own code
H: OK then, explain this! [clicks Start>Programs>Accessories>Command Prompt] See? That’s DOS!
M: That’s a DOS emulation session
H: [snort] no, you’re seeing underneath the OS shell there, to the DOS workings below.
M: [Presses <Ctrl><Alt><Del>, selects Task manager and points out NTVDM] - this program is the NT Virtual DOS machine - it is an emulation of a 16 bit processor running DOS in its own environment.
H: No, it isn’t - look at this [returns to the DOS session window and types HELP] - see - look, there are all the DOS commands.
M: Well, a DOS emulation would have to have them, wouldn’t it?
H: Microsoft have removed some commands from DOS, so that people will think it is gone.
M: like what?
H: Scandisk - they’ve taken away the DOS scandisk
M: That’s because Windows XP is a descendant of the NT lineage, which branched off the tree at quite an early stage - the commands you’re looking for were never added to this family.
H: Still, it’s just DOS with a pretty face on it
M: No, it isn;'t
H: It has to be; Intel processors can only run DOS code.

and so on.

10

XML-based heirarchial systems and object stores seem to be getting some buzz.

Nevermind that both have been tried in the past (heirarchial databases in the distant past) and both ultimately lost most of the marketshare to relational databases.

11

OOhhh… that’s why so many linix machines are operating on Intel processors… :confused:

12

Yup, tried that argument - IIRC, he just waved it off with some comment about *nix still requiring the DOS command interpreter - I don’t remember the precise details, as my brain melted at this point.