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Why HN was down

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Re: Why HN was down

#231

Post by Brandon0 »

jsmeaton wrote: post #172
davesims wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few times a month, I'll look up at one of my colleagues and say, "hey, got a sec? I need to talk to the duck," and they know this means I'm going to talk to their head but they can basically keep doing what they're doing and nod occasionally. This serves several purposes: (1) It's less insane-sounding than actually talking to an inanimate object in an open work environment. (2) It actually feels better and forces m…

On occasion, I'll write a question on stackoverflow and re-read it a few times before hitting submit just in case I get that eureka moment. I think I've written way more non-submitted questions than submitted questions.

I do this a lot too. In fact more often than not I end up not posting the question because either I solve the problem or I think of a possible solution I should go try first. I think we should start calling it Digital Rubber Ducking.

Re: Why HN was down

#232

Post by [deleted] »

lmm wrote: post #115
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #67

There are a number of comments that add up to "what steps will you take to ensure this does not happen again" - akin to a incident review. As speculation that's fine, as advice, I don't think it should be listened to. I am reminded of an long-in-the-tooth sysadmin of my acquaintance who logged in everywhere as root. His theory - "they are my boxes. I screw it up, I fix it." I eventually realised that typing sudo ever…

Typing sudo won't save you, but using a higher-level interface will. Everyone I've ever known to change something in the database by hand, everyone at all, even on a hobby project that they know like the back of their hand, has screwed it up sooner or later. At some point the pain tells you you should stop doing that, and you create an admin tool that lets you do what you need to repeatably and safely.

[deleted]

Re: Why HN was down

#233

Post by lemming »

davesims wrote: post #59
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #7

Amazing that such a large percentage of debugging involves determining exactly what you are debugging. The definition of the problem, many times, is the solution. Might be a good time to mention Rubber Duck Debuggging. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging

A few times a month, I'll look up at one of my colleagues and say, "hey, got a sec? I need to talk to the duck," and they know this means I'm going to talk to their head but they can basically keep doing what they're doing and nod occasionally. This serves several purposes: (1) It's less insane-sounding than actually talking to an inanimate object in an open work environment. (2) It actually feels better and forces m…

Amusingly, IntelliJ has a plugin to do exactly this:

https://sites.google.com/site/codeconsultantplugin

Re: Why HN was down

#234

Post by dguaraglia »

paganel wrote: post #225
dguaraglia wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people are just freaking difficult to work with. I've worked with people that wouldn't accept responsibility even after every other possible cause was ruled out. I've even gotten this reply: "well, you must have been unlucky to get the faulty e-mail, because it seems to work most of the time". Yeah, because that's how programming works: cowboy coding and hoping for the best. This guy actually called bugfixes "op…

> And the first time they avoid taking responsibility for something that was clearly their fault, fire them. I guess there's still difficult for a lot of people to acknowledge their own mistakes, maybe because they're afraid of getting fired for that (acknowledging the mistake), which in the case of startups/small companies happens very rarely. From my own experience of working at startups for my entire professional…

Exactly! When everyone is on the same boat the priority is fixing the stuff, then wondering whether attributing responsibility is important (most of the time it isn't. Who cares who fucked up the e-mail template, as long as it's fixed next time it runs.)

I think in this guy's case the causes for his reluctance (or rather, incapability) to accept his own mistakes had much deeper roots. He was literally the most self-centered person I've ever met, to the point that he wouldn't accept anyone's opinion on anything. He went out of his way to find doctors that'd go with his suggestions and run all kinds of tests on him to determine why he had a blood pressure problem, when he was clearly way overweight and had the unhealthiest diet I've ever seen. He'd dress up in shorts and t-shirts during the worst days of winter, and then take a niacin pill to force a capillary rush so his hands wouldn't feel cold (?)

Basically, he just thought the world had to bend to his will. Why use common sense, when you can just say "fuck it" and find a workaround that fits your mindset. Of course you can't expect someone like that to 'accept' his own shortcomings.

The scariest part of all this is he tried, for a while, to become a cop. Yep, imagine that: a 240lbs armed prick, completely unable to reason, forcing his way on everyone. I shudder at the thought.

Re: Why HN was down

#235

Post by hfsktr »

Brandon0 wrote: post #231
jsmeaton wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On occasion, I'll write a question on stackoverflow and re-read it a few times before hitting submit just in case I get that eureka moment. I think I've written way more non-submitted questions than submitted questions.

I do this a lot too. In fact more often than not I end up not posting the question because either I solve the problem or I think of a possible solution I should go try first. I think we should start calling it Digital Rubber Ducking.

I am looking for an excuse to make digitalrubberduck(y/ie).com

If I was a bit more clever I feel like there is a use there.

Re: Why HN was down

#236

Post by Swannie »

mafro wrote: post #198
3pt14159 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never screwed it up on a live database, but I do take about 5 mins, first reviewing the keys, the type, whether or not something can be null, checking to see if critical columns have select count(distinct column_name) having count(distinct column_name) > 1; To make sure that there isn't an underlying uniqueness assumption. Sure I could do it in 10 seconds and save myself 290 seconds (a 97% savings!) but then one…

This. Back in the day when I was in more of an analyst role, I ended up /having/ to hack on the live DB frequently (reasons for this were myriad). 1. Always, always make a backup just before the hack. 2. Write a small set queries like 3pt14159's to check uniqueness and other pertinent properties. 3. Write a SELECT query to show the data you are going to change. 4. Borrow the WHERE clause from 3, and write your UPDATE…

Is there any other way??? :)

I thought everyone did this - well... for small datasets, skip the back, use a transaction. Rollback if your step 5 failed and try again.

Re: Why HN was down

#237

Post by gbog »

mafro wrote: post #198
3pt14159 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never screwed it up on a live database, but I do take about 5 mins, first reviewing the keys, the type, whether or not something can be null, checking to see if critical columns have select count(distinct column_name) having count(distinct column_name) > 1; To make sure that there isn't an underlying uniqueness assumption. Sure I could do it in 10 seconds and save myself 290 seconds (a 97% savings!) but then one…

This. Back in the day when I was in more of an analyst role, I ended up /having/ to hack on the live DB frequently (reasons for this were myriad). 1. Always, always make a backup just before the hack. 2. Write a small set queries like 3pt14159's to check uniqueness and other pertinent properties. 3. Write a SELECT query to show the data you are going to change. 4. Borrow the WHERE clause from 3, and write your UPDATE…

6. Should be ROLLBACK, a life saver. Works in postgres.

Re: Why HN was down

#239

Post by Posibyte »

I absolutely love post-mortems like this. It clearly identified that there was a problem, what the author tried to do to fix it, and if it was successful. Even if it ends with the author not knowing too much about the solution that was used, it's still so interesting to see the workflows and be able to derive something from it.

It's also why I like to read pg's articles so much. They're so in-depth and detailed and it doesn't feel you left thinking something was left out for the sake of being hidden.

Re: Why HN was down

#240

Post by davesims »

lemming wrote: post #233
davesims wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few times a month, I'll look up at one of my colleagues and say, "hey, got a sec? I need to talk to the duck," and they know this means I'm going to talk to their head but they can basically keep doing what they're doing and nod occasionally. This serves several purposes: (1) It's less insane-sounding than actually talking to an inanimate object in an open work environment. (2) It actually feels better and forces m…

Amusingly, IntelliJ has a plugin to do exactly this: https://sites.google.com/site/codeconsultantplugin

That's fantastic. I use IntelliJ for Android stuff, installing now. They should add a 'Duck' mode that just brings up a big picture of the rubber duck.
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