Technology
This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.
Ask in DM before posting product reviews or ads. All such posts otherwise are subject to removal.
Rules:
1: All Lemmy rules apply
2: Do not post low effort posts
3: NEVER post naziped*gore stuff
4: Always post article URLs or their archived version URLs as sources, NOT screenshots. Help the blind users.
5: personal rants of Big Tech CEOs like Elon Musk are unwelcome (does not include posts about their companies affecting wide range of people)
6: no advertisement posts unless verified as legitimate and non-exploitative/non-consumerist
7: crypto related posts, unless essential, are disallowed
view the rest of the comments
@ChickenLadyLovesLife I was a big fan of BeOS. I reviewed it about quarter of a century ago:
https://archive.org/details/PersonalComputerWorldMagazine/PCW%20200007%20July%20Created%20From%20PCW%20Cover%20CD%20%28No%20Cover%29/page/n50/mode/1up
... and I liked it a lot:
Yeah, BeOS was awesome. I remember a coworker showing it to me in 1996 - he also taught me how to wow the c-suite with giant printouts of insanely over-normalized databases, a parlor trick that has served me well over the years.
@ChickenLadyLovesLife
I am sorry but I don't junderstand any of this.
> the c-suite
(?)
> with giant printouts of insanely over-normalized databases
(?)
> a parlor trick
(?) How is a database a trick?
What does this stuff mean?
CEO, CTO, CFO etc. In a '90s Internet startup like the company I worked for, the "C" really stood for "clueless".
Over-normalization is a database thing - a simple example of normalization would be a "People" table where instead of having the "Salutation" field just contain text like Mr, Mrs. etc., you have a separate "Salutations" table with all the possibilities listed and keyed with an ID (usually just a sequential number), and then the "People" table stores a Salutation ID for each entry instead of the actual text. It's a valid and standard thing to do with database design, but it can be taken to extremes where absolutely every possible trivial thing that can be normalized is, producing an overcomplicated mess that is extremely difficult to work with programmatically.
Printing out this over-normalized mess of a database on multiple sheets of paper which are then taped to the wall is utterly useless.
The printout is the trick - it fools the bosses into thinking you're doing something amazing and productive when you're really just fucking around. It only works on the technically incompetent, of which there was no shortage in '90s Internet startups (or today).