Remember the Simple Things

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Remember the Simple Things

Steve Jones - SSC Editor

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October 6, 2018 at 1:11 pm

#369133

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Remember the Simple Things

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Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1004340 More actions · Answer 1

I wish people would remember the simple things when they're writing code. To me, the "KISS" method is "Keep It Super Simple".

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

call.copse SSCoach Points: 18050 More actions · Answer 2

I often have to go a bit Zen with this. I see some super cool trendy solution that uses something esoteric to achieve an end and I have to be, "That's lovely, we can leave it like that, but perhaps it would be clearer for others if you just..."

Still, I'm a simple man and like simple things. Guess it's experience, not that I don't get that wrong still occasionally.

djackson 22568 SSChampion Points: 11733 More actions · Answer 3

Every year for Black Friday a particular retailer, with a slogan about being easy, offers label makers for about $10-$20. Since buying one a few years back, I label every cable that comes with any product. Well, not my Apple products of course. Then I can quickly tell which cable is for what device. It has reduced the issues you encountered.

I still get issues where microsoft products simply refuse to work as they should, resulting in flash drives not showing up, removable Western Digital drives not showing up, drives just disappearing for no reason... Usually I can fix those by obtaining non-microsoft drivers.

That said, I have a mental list of things to do before vacations and such, and making sure the memory cards are empty is one such task. For my camera, i make sure that I empty it after every event I tape. If I could only get my kids to play nice, and empty the camera SD cards when they take my camera to shoot pictures...

Dave

usererror Ten Centuries Points: 1148 More actions · Answer 4

This read made my day. Love the comment about troubleshooting printers!

-Mark
MSSQL 2019 Standard, Azure Hosted. Techie/Sysadmin by trade; Three years as a "DBA" now.

djackson 22568 SSChampion Points: 11733 More actions · Answer 5

Jeff Moden - Saturday, October 6, 2018 8:12 PM
I wish people would remember the simple things when they're writing code. To me, the "KISS" method is "Keep It Super Simple".

Great way to think about it. I can't tell you how much code I have had to rewrite because someone felt making it as tight as possible was better than being readable, or accurate.

Dave

Matt Miller (4) SSC Guru Points: 124210 More actions · Answer 6

I love this advice - just wish we had seen this one sooner 🙂

Last weekend our biggest deployment in 10 years (we were deploying a brand new enterprise billing system + full financial history migration) almost got derailed because.... we forgot to double check that the production version of SQL Server on a critical component of our architecture was at the same version as QA. The update procedures just flat refused to compile, until we figured out that the production edition was still 2008R2, and the code required 2014+. It didn't take too long to work around the issue once we understood what caused it, but we did spin a little...

I am grateful to report we did finish the job and the new system is stable at this point.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part...unless you're my manager...or a director and above...or a really loud-spoken end-user..All right - what was my emergency again?

mercurej Mr or Mrs. 500 Points: 556 More actions · Answer 7

How often I have wished user would think of the simple things first.

The most glaring example comes from the days I wasn't just a developer but also IT support and a system admin. I get a call from a user who said the printer wasn't working. I walk to the other side of the building, take one look at printer, open the paper tray and load it!! She never checked the paper. :crazy:

The funny part is about 10 years later, 19 years ago next month, I married her!! 🙂

IowaDave SSCommitted Points: 1734 More actions · Answer 8

Steve, I feel your pain and have been through almost the exact same issues - getting photos from phone to computer, transferring data between old and new tablets, etc. It's amazing all the different cords there are. :ermm:

The latest "interesting" hardware issue I've run into is with SD card readers. I put trail cameras up in the woods and I wanted a quick way to be able to view the images off the cards right on my phone while in the woods. I bought one and it just plain didn't work - Nothing. (In order to get a refund, I had to upload a video showing it didn't work - and they wanted it under 5MB - that was a challenge!) On a second one, I had the USB-C plug break off in my phone. And what I've noticed about both of the ones that I've gotten to work is that my phone instantly writes TO them instead of reading FROM them. I get some "default phone path" directories on the SD cards. (What I don't know is if it's ever over-written the pictures that my cameras have taken?!?!?) To protect myself now, I always "lock" the SD cards before I insert them. 😉

jasona.work SSC Guru Points: 50117 More actions · Answer 9

Oh so very many stories that can relate to this...

Recently I had the exact same issue as the article mentioned. The wife and I were trying to get photos off her phone to our NAS and the bloody phone WOULD NOT show up. It was the same problem as Steve ran into, I was using some random cable I grabbed, once I pulled the one that came with the phone, voila, there's the phone...

Back in my help desk days, my mantra was always "start with the basics," because more times than not something basic was the problem.
Favorite memory? A customer had a laser printer that would not print. No errors, no warnings, it would feed the paper through, but nothing printed. They had just replaced the toner cartridge that day, as well. So, I had them pull the toner, and lo and behold, the bright orange tab that had to be pulled off (pulling out the strip that sealed the cartridge out with it) was still attached. Once they pulled it, everything was working fine.

Of course, I've caught myself skipping checking the basics sometimes, and it almost always comes back and bites me, because it *does* turn out to be something basic that I skipped checking, because "there's no way *that's* the problem."