You are nice, and for all I know you could be old enough to be my grandmother as this training is taking place over instant messenger, but it was a relatively simple question about the data structure of the config files that accompany each case.
Yes I know that your method of finding the specific urls that need to be monitored is to use Find and look for the client’s name. I was just asking in which field of the file are such addresses usually found in case I ever need or want to look for them with my eyeballs and not have blind faith in mindless tools and the code of every application that led to the config file’s existence in the first place.
No I do not plan to forsake Find and insist on manually looking them up like some geeky version of a Civil War re-enactment.
So just ANSWER THE FUCKING QUESTION OR SAY YOU DON’T KNOW instead of taking it upon yourself to dissect and dismiss every vague hypothetical I use to try and explain why I’m asking.
I’m not asking how to do it by hand. I’m asking a general question about the data structure for a variety of reasons, one of which is in case I might ever need/wand to interpret something about the config file other than whether or not it contains just the string of the client’s name. She is a luddite for not being willing to even think outside of the narrow script and scope she herself was apparently trained with or to try and have a functional grasp on the data she’s handling every day.
I should have just read through a sample of config files and figured it myself but I figured she might know since she’s familiar with them, so I asked.
Gfactor. As a favour can you link me to the bit of the dope (thread/post/sticky) that explains why our pittings of people or things no longer belong in the Pit?
Forgive me if I am being ignorant. And I will take a moment to look around. But a link from someone who knows already is easy right?
I ask because my thread got moved. And there seems to be a lot of moved threads. So I want to make sure I put my future rants (few that I hope them to be) in the appropriate sub-forum.
Whenever I get to be King of IT, my first proclamation will be to decree that when someone asks you a question, the first words out of your mouth must be an answer to the exact question asked, or “I don’t know”. Then, and only then, may you start expounding about why you think the question is inappropriate, bearing in mind that the person is not required to listen to your unsolicited opionion.
There are many different ways of doing things and knowing things in the world of computers. It’s simply shocking how many people think there’s only one, and they’ve already found it.
To be frank she’s not really being a “luddite” in any reasonable sense of the term. If anything your apparent insistence on foreswearing the easy “blind faith in mindless tools and the code of every application” for the comprehensive nuts and bolts, old time religion approach is a bit more primitive than hers.
I addressed in my OP that I did not plan on doing the old time religious thing. My question goes to context of the data. Her track-minded ways are completely worthless for debugging. When you have to wait for other people to come on shift to even begin debugging, that is inefficient. Efficiency is a contributing factor to how advanced/primitive something is, yes?
Not in the sense you are using the term. New ways to do things may (or may not be) more inefficient in some cases than the old ways. The termLuddite has nothing to do with “efficiency” except as by a potential byproduct of the new machine/service/technology/whatever. It’s definitional meaning typically relates to hostile resistance to innovation and antagonism toward new technology. Simply being antagonistic (or in this case not all that enthusiastic about) your debugging methodology preferences is kind of outside that umbrella.
I’m an IT Support guy, and when I’m confronted with someone who asks me for assistence then criticises my methodology I want to ask them “If you’re so smart, why are you asking me for help??”. But I don’t, because it’s bad form to remind people of their position on the technological totem pole.
I have the luxury of working directly with Microsoft on frequent occassions, and I’m reminded that 1) I’m not as smart as I thought I was right before I realized I needed to call support, and 2) When the guy on the other endof the line is doing things differently than I would have, that’s usually a good sign, since my methodology lead to me calling support.
When you get to the point where you never have to call anyone -ever- for tech support, because you know all there is to know, then come back and post about how retarded the rest of us are. Until then, give her a break and try to remember you’re the one going to her asking for help.
For fuck sake, i didn’t ask her for help. It was a question prompted by the crappy training doc she had written and the crappy training she was giving me. At the time I had asked the question, I’d seen maybe 3 of these particular config files and she had dealt with hundreds if not thousands. None of the one’s I’d encountered so far contained any of this particular data that can be present, so I asked her if she had an example of a config file that did include that data, but she didn’t want to go look for one. So then I asked if she could describe where in the config file they were generally found and that began the string of non-answers to the question. Because I’m on my own for the second half of my shift, she isn’t always available to confirm things with and I was trying to arm myself with the information I’d need to double check myself when working alone.
I may not be presenting her asinine half of the conversation well enough, but I really think most reasonable people would have gotten to the point where they would have wanted to stress the capitalized statement in my OP.
They aren’t calling you because you’re smart and they’re not, it’s because you have more control over the systems and information than they do. Noting that you work with Microsoft products, that whole model is really just a system to concentrate control and knowledge in the hands of the few, not really to make anyone self-sufficient. In Microsoft-land, you don’t learn rules that build on themselves, you learn procedures and exceptions. That means when you want support you have to reach upward to someone closer to the source.
No wonder the OP’s situation, a case where someone is trying to learn something to make themselves more self-sufficient, would completely fly over your head.
To be bitching about (in the OP’s case), and insulting (in your case) someone who is trained to help procedural users in using procedural applications for not having more intricate meta-level knowledge of the task you want to understand is kind of stupid. It reminds me of the users who would come to the retail counter when I was at Radio Shack in the early 80’s and get huffy or disappointed when we didn’t have the expertise to recommend transistor or part x or y for their circuit application.
One one level it was true that we were lacking skills in that department, on the other it was borderline retarded for these idiots to think that we were going to be hiring people as retail store managers and personnel based on their expertise in that minor product line.
