Bring back the GOOF Button
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Hi,
when I was a kid, I owned a book on Computers and Robots, I think it was part of the 'How and Why' series...
In this book there was a picture which showed a learned-looking man in a white coat sitting cross-legged next to a huge rack containing electronic components with lots of wires, lights and switches. There was a big red button on the rack frame labelled 'GOOF'.
The caption of the picture explained that the scientist was programming the computer by teaching it to solve problems. The computer learned because every time it made a mistake, the scientist pressed the 'GOOF' button, presumably causing the computer some sort of electronic angst. It wouldnt make that mistake in a hurry again
I want to re-introduce the 'GOOF' button as a standard feature on the keyboard of a modern PC! When my SQL query doesn't give me the answers I am expecting, or my laptop takes 5 minutes to open MS Word because its in the middle of a virus check, I want to be able to press the 'GOOF' button on my keyboard.
My laptop will then utter an agonized scream and learn that virus checks should not be run when I have a presentation to finish for the important meeting in 10 minutes I was told about 2 weeks ago, or that intuitive JOINS should automatically be added when omitted from queries returning cartesian products with more than a million rows.
After a while, my laptop will be so well educated that we will exist in a kind of symbiotic telepathic nirvana. I will turn it on in the morning and find all my period end reports completed and my presentations ready to, er.. present.
Either that or it will have dobbed me in to the Laptop Welfare Agency and absconded to a more amenable owner
If anyone knows of a supplier who sells 'GOOF' buttons, or is in a position to manufacture same, please let me know...
David
If it ain't broke, don't fix it...
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In my office's desktop - some time ago, I added a red panic button to my keyboard (received as a gift from my secretary). It's one of those things that you glue on - but it looks very real. So far I have found no need to really use it - although on occasion I (nervously) dribble on it with my fingers - like when the answer is not coming back quick enough.
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I want a reverse GOOF button that gives out stronger and stronger electric current when people write queries that give cartesian products, or bad code in general. Preferably tied in directly to my servers so I can increase the strength of the shock to particularly bad query writers! I would of course be excempt from this as the DBA!
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Anders,
some sort of electronic link between the cost of your query plan and mains power supply?
David
If it ain't broke, don't fix it...
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I think the GOOF button hooked up to a foghorn placed near the query writer's desk would be sufficient
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NEVER underestimate the power of peer pressure. The foghorn will certainly endear one with the neighbors.
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About 10 years ago I did a CA-Unicenter Systems Management and Service Desk implementation for a firm who's network ops centre was in Watford. The operations monitoring suite consisted of a semi-circle of 8 PCs facing a large white wall, with a an overhead Barco projector on which you could present the image from any of the monitoring PCs. Usually the wall displayed a 3D image of the UK network with little green blobs above all the main IT installations, quite a cool set-up at the time.
Anyhow, if there was a fault detected on the network, we rigged it so that the display zoomed in and a big red blob appeared above the piece of rogue equipment, at the same time the Starship Enterprise red alert sound played over the loud speakers on all 8 PCs
It was very impressive... honest...
David
If it ain't broke, don't fix it...
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David,
As long as that doesn't happen every hour, that would be cool.
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