From: stormreaver
Written: 2018-07-17 16:02:11.816423
Subject: We're Not Key Based
Written: 2018-07-17 16:02:11.816423
Subject: We're Not Key Based
I have had the grave misfortune over the years of having to work with 3rd-party government software vendors. It seems that government software companies are where the incompetent college dropouts go for jobs. To protect myself, I'm not going to name names. I will, though, give you the latest example of massive incompetence that I have experienced.
While trying to get this company to convert our existing data into their database, we've had to explain to them over and over again that sequences and keys are extensively used by our own software. This company proudly proclaimed to us that their software was not key or sequence driven.
I was stunned to hear something like this coming from a company with a market value of nearly ten billion dollars. My internal response, which I kept to myself during the meeting in which this company made that statement, was, "That's not something to be proud of. You should be hanging your head in shame while you whisper that so quietly as to be imperceptible."
That's a lot like a surgeon proudly stating, "This hospital is not scalpel based; we are rusty spoon based." Not only should such a statement be embarrassing to utter, it should immediately cause the entire hospital to be shut down by regulators.
The same is true of this software company. It should be shut down until its programmers and managers successfully complete Database 101.
While trying to get this company to convert our existing data into their database, we've had to explain to them over and over again that sequences and keys are extensively used by our own software. This company proudly proclaimed to us that their software was not key or sequence driven.
I was stunned to hear something like this coming from a company with a market value of nearly ten billion dollars. My internal response, which I kept to myself during the meeting in which this company made that statement, was, "That's not something to be proud of. You should be hanging your head in shame while you whisper that so quietly as to be imperceptible."
That's a lot like a surgeon proudly stating, "This hospital is not scalpel based; we are rusty spoon based." Not only should such a statement be embarrassing to utter, it should immediately cause the entire hospital to be shut down by regulators.
The same is true of this software company. It should be shut down until its programmers and managers successfully complete Database 101.
From: stormreaver
Written: 2023-06-13 19:09:18.104292
Written: 2023-06-13 19:09:18.104292
So we've been using this company's software for about five years now, and the first two and a half years were a nightmare of corporate incompetence. I eventually got them to provide a data interface that only partially sucks, and for which I was able to create work-arounds so that the data we copy into our own database is sane.