Re: Thoughts on "Love Your Database" - Mailing list pgsql-general

Hello,

(sorry for delay, I've been traveling)

Le 04/05/2016 17:08, John McKown a écrit :
>>>> ...
>>>>         ​Allowing PHBs direct access t​o company data is a nasty thing.
>>>
>>>     Sorry, what is a PHB?  Our friend google didn't help me much on this
>>>     matter.
>
>> ​Ah. Sorry. PHB is a "Pointy Haired Boss" and is a reference to the
>> comic "Dilbert". Dilbert is a engineer who works for a boss who is a
>> complete idiot & has his hair moussed up at the sides (I guess it is
>> moussed).

Le 04/05/2016 17:05, Steve Crawford a écrit :
> Perhaps a bit US centric but PHB = Pointy Haired Boss. See the boss in
> "Dilbert".

Alright, got it, thanks.
I admire Dilbert; I've had bosses like PHB...


>> ...
>>     Hm.  Sounds familiar...
>>     I usually call "excelitis" a sort of mental disease related to a use
>>     and abuse of Excel, up to the point where one cannot imagine data
>>     which is *not* in a table-like array.  And they think that they do
>>     Relational Database Management...  In the 1990's, I met many-many
>>     deeply sick persons.  I had been infected for a while, I must confess.
>
> ​Yes, I keep reading in another forum about how to interface the R
> language so that the users can continue to input data into Excel, but
> then have it run a R language script to produce some output. So many
> there are trying to use Excel as their "user interface" because it is
> just about all the user knows.

Well, that could be a good way to pull them out of excel: once they will
realize that there is no way that they can do what R does with macros
and formulas (yes, they will try hard to get rid of R, I'm sure...), it
may open up their mind and consider other ways of looking at data than
mere two-dimensional tables...



> I had a manager, long ago, who used a Lotus 1-2-3​ spreadsheet to contain
> all his memos. I was glassy eyed in disbelief.

Well...  I did use 1-2-3 as a sort-of database (I was young... bad
excuse).  And also, I had used Excel to produce final reports, with
plenty of graphics, I used the vector editing tools a lot to make fancy
figures...
Hm.  Long time ago.


> He also would use his hand calculator to add up the numbers
> in the spreadsheet to be sure that the summation function in the
> spreadsheet didn't make a mistake. <shudder/>

Uh-oh.  This is worrying.  But it makes me think of a famous excel bug,
where you had something like 1 - 1 = 2...  Maybe your boss was actually
very wise (and paranoid)?...

À+
Pierre
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