July 8th, 2005
So, I don't like to advertise the name of the company I work for; this is to preserve the precarious balance I maintain (i.e., the only censure I suffer is from my own sense of self-preservation) and also because I don't want to make it too easy for undesirable people to locate me. (I mean, I'm sure someone could already find me quite easily ... but why lay out a path of breadcrumbs to assist them?) So I cannot even tell you the main software that my corner of my company sells ... but let's just call it a highly-customizable structured authoring tool and leave it at that, shall we?
One of the things about this "highly customizable" tool is that there seems to be no limit at all to what people can do with it ... and to prove my point, I have a customization of it that I have been working on at odd times in airports and in hotel rooms ... at any time I need to waste 30 minutes of my life with my laptop in my hand and no Internet connection. The customization is a version of that wild and crazy arcade classic from the 1980s, Space Invaders. If you don't know much about authoring tools (like Word, WordPerfect, Ventura, FrameMaker, etc.) then being able to play Space Invaders instead of writing a marketing whitepaper may not seem all that impressive ... but it can be done, and as I write this I am close to completion of this particular customization.
But this sort of thing is hardly a new phenomenon. I once worked for a company that made mining and geology resource management software, and one of the employees created a mine site that was the shape of one of those humungous trucks that haul ore and slag around. You could zoom in on parts of it and look at it from all different angles!
And I knew someone who wrote an entire text adventure game using DOS batch files ... not out of any sense of humour, but just because it could be done. (This guy, by the way, was a bit of a hot-head. He once threw a plateful of food (minus the plate) at a hostess of a restaurant because ... well, I think because she wouldn't fall instantly in love with him ... but the details are fuzzy now after all this time.)
Besides, who hasn't visited websites that proudly and cheekily proclaim, "Built using Notepad technology"? I'm sort of partial to doing things "the hard way" at least once, myself. Not because I don't trust the new technology, but because I sometimes just want to see how it is done. Often, things don't sit right with me unless I understand how they work under the covers. So that, although I have never built a database engine with my own fair hands (for example), I could if I really had to. This kind of "having to know" will eventually get me into some serious trouble, I know ...
And, speaking of database engines, I even have a former co-worker who created a "sex" database. This included toys and other objects, physical acts, various games one could play, including role-playing ... gosh, the list probably went on and on. He kept relational integrity as well as maintaining links between related rows of data. What an Übergeek.
But, of course, all the related database terms take on new second meanings, eh? To outgeek my geeky former friend, I offer these examples:
- One-to-one - The standard database interface method
- One-to many - This frequently involves financial transactions whereby the "one" acquires a particularly rich set of data
- Many-to-many - Well, it's not my cup of tea, but I understand from anecdotal evidence that it can be a lot of fun...
- Inner join - A beautiful moment in relational database connectivity
- Outer join - Yuck.
- SQL statement - These days we use the more modern expression: "booty call"
- Data entry - Well, this is what it's all about, isn't it? I mean, you can have database connectivity without actually entering your data, but it's not really the same, is it?
- Flat file - Also known as a flaccid file; if you continue to have problems achieving and maintaining a connection, you should consult a Database Management Specialist
- Foreign key - Many foreign keys have a different method for interfacing with databases; this is very appealing to some database management systems
Finally,
- After you have performed enough [SELECT] statements, or perhaps you have had to [CREATE USER] (though, you should be aware that in case you are incapable of creating the perfect user, you can still alter your perceptions of them using the [CREATE VIEW] statement) you will eventually want to [SQL> COMMIT] and form a [UNION]. This is the natural course of events in life, of course, but things do not always [INTERSECT] in the way we planned them. So, if you realise this quickly enough, you may be able to [ROLLBACK] the [TRANSACTION]. If, however, you find that after a time a [REVOKE] statement has been called on your data access privileges to the user interface, it may be time to [DROP PROCEDURE] or—at the very worst—[DROP DATABASE] entirely. This last may seem excessive, but if something isn't done in time to avoid data corruption, you may find that you have to resort to a [SQL> EXECUTE] command. Nothing good can come of that.
Sign my guestbook - Email me - Back to the Rant-o-Rama index