My girlfriend was returning to education thirteen years after leaving school early with nothing. She was petrified of algebra - a completely irrational fear. If I explained a problem in terms of 'find the missing number', she'd do it. If I then rewrote it such that the missing number was represented by 'x', then she'd freeze and not go near it.
So, one night whilst out for a drink I grabbed the little packets of sauce that were on the table. I laid down three packets of tomato sauce and said that these three packets could be represented by a single packet of tartare. Then I put down two packets of tartare and asked how many packets of tomato sauce that represented.
That was her first exercise in symbolic representation for about thirteen years. She passed it, and has gone on to take access courses before studying for four years to be a dispensing optician. She's now done her finals, involving such things as ray tracing and equations of quite ridiculous lengths that usually had to be re-arranged and substituted into other equations. We're waiting to hear the results, though she's passed everything else so far.
So there you go. My small contribution to the world of teaching - applied mathematics using packets of sauce in a pub. Not the most conventional maths lesson of all time, but it worked.
Cheers,
Ian
Re:Has it occured to anyone....
on
Microsoft Freon
·
· Score: 2
... that they probably named this product "freon" in a feeble attempt at establishing a connection between use of the product and being "free".... or something equally market-savvy and brain-dead.
I read it as them implying that the product is cool.
The principle of generating finite amounts of improbability...was well understood, and often used to break the ice at parties by making all the molecules in the hostess' undergarments leap simultaneously to the left in accordince with the principle of indeterminacy.
Respectable phycisists said they weren't going to stand for that kind of thing, partly because it was a debasement of science but mostly because they didn't get invited to those sort of parties....
another alike question could be: would you eat meat of you had to kill and butcher the cow yourself..
Interesting one this.
I was working in Singapore for a couple of weeks with my then boss, who I got on well with. We went out for a meal somewhere (I believe Boat Quay for those that know the place) and ordered Chili Crab. A few moments later, a waitress came out with a live crab on the end of a rope asking me if this one would be ok.
A bit surprised, I put my vast knowledge of crustacean quality to use (ie. none) and decided that since it looked like a crab to me then yes, that crab would be fine. The crab was taken away, killed and cooked, then presented back to me smothered in chili sauce.
My boss, who is a vegetarian, was horrified. "How could you do that?", he asked. "Imagine if you knew who that was. That could be Fred!" Well, Fred looked like a reasonably tasty crab to me and so my answer would still have been the same. Even it if turned out to be George...
The point here is that it would have been hypocritical of me to refuse to eat the crab just because I'd once seen it alive. So my answer to your original question is "yes - I would still eat meat if I had to kill and butcher the meat myself".
Oh, just as an aside this lovely lady is a fully qualified butcher, though she works as an optician. She is also my fiancee and the mother of our child - being a butcher doesn't automatically make you a psychopath in the same way that answering yes to the 'peasant killing' question would do.
Cheers,
Ian
Re:Design isn't purely aesthetics, that's Art
on
Built For Use
·
· Score: 1
The best Web sites don't necessarily come from the best designers.
What a pointless statement. If designers don't design great Web sites then they are not the best web designers.
The line doesn't state "best web designers". It purely states "best designers". That is to say, generalists.
...as an aesthetic movement, rather than as an obsession. And yes, this is on topic.
Around 1915/1930, an artistic movement arose in France called 'Purism'. The central tenant of Purism is that the 'masses' know better than the experts when it comes to design.
So...lets take an example. A chair. A chair typically has four legs and and back. Totally unremarkable. You can, if you so desire, buy unusual chairs such as this Egg chair, but they are the exception rather than the norm.
According to Purism, the four-legged chair wins. It has been accepted by the masses as functional and fit for purpose, whereas the Egg chair has been banished to the fringes.
So how to apply to web design? Well, take everybody's favourite search engine - Google. Look at the interface. It's obvious where you type, it's obvious what you do with the results. The interface is quick and clean, without being flashy. It is a four-legged chair - functional, useful and ubiquitous.
Now let's compare with the various graph-based graphical search engines. These have a slightly different purpose, but perform essentially the same job as Google. They are the Egg chair of the search engine world - esoteric, and banished to the fringes. Purism would eschew such designs.
Now Purism has its faults - stick with, err..., 'pure' Purism and you'll never make any progress. New designs would be thin on the ground. However, there are some very useful lessons to be learned from the movement in my opinion - changing things for change's sake is bad, keep things clean, make things recognisable...you get the idea.
Planet Corporate. In these environments, users have locked down desktops, each checked for consistency with a central server via logon scripts, and are rarely able to make many decisions for themselves.
For example, where I am it insists on sticking MS Office icons on my desktop even though I mainly just use Exceed. Delete the icons? Certainly sir, but then they reappear the next time you log in.
No...in this theory the whole thing is meant to be a photograph. It's the light that created the effect, not actual contact. So your geometry-based objections are overcome.
Note that I'm not a true believer in this theory - just passing on what I read. Personally, I don't have the evidence either way.
Cheers,
Ian
Re:First photo? Wild Turin Shroud theories...
on
World's First Photo
·
· Score: 1
Erm...the bad news is...[t]he theory is utter rubbish.
Yes, can well believe the Da Vinci bit is just pseudo-sugar.
The interesting part to me isn't that Da Vinci was supposed to have created it, it is the fact that photographic techniques may have been in use during the 16th century. As far as I'm aware, that part of the theory is still supposed to be correct.
Cheers,
Ian
Re:First photo? Wild Turin Shroud theories...
on
World's First Photo
·
· Score: 1
The people I saw talking about this at a Fortean Times convention some years ago claimed the Shroud was a photograph taken by Leonardo da Vinci...
That's it. That's what I was trying to remember. I seem to remember that da Vinci was influenced by techniques already developed in Turkey.
Oh, and top name by the way. Been a fan of the Brentford Trilogy for ages...
Cheers,
Ian
Re:First photo? Wild Turin Shroud theories...
on
World's First Photo
·
· Score: 2
The Shroud of Turin is a 14th century painting
Could well be. The bit I found interesting about my post was the inference that photography was already being used by the Turks in the 1500s (hmm...14th actually).
Of course, without any sources to hand I don't have a shred of evidence for this...
Cheers,
Ian
First photo? Wild Turin Shroud theories...
on
World's First Photo
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
OK. I'd like to demolish my credibility before starting on this, so...
I don't know any references to back up what I'm saying
I'm basing the information on a Fortean Time's article I read a few years ago
Given the above, I remember reading that one possibility for the Turin Shroud was that it was an early, and I mean early, photograph. Apparently, the Turks had developed a method of photography involving canvas and I -think- silver nitrate (maybe mercury?). This was in use during the 1500s, as far as I recally the article saying.
Now, the photography they were talking about wouldn't bear much resemblence to a camera as we would recognise it. I believe the subject had to be very still, covered in this impregnated cloth and then the light would do the rest.
I realise this is a very sketchy post, but I'm at work right now and really am not able to spend ages chasing down the relevant information. Just chucking this one out for a bit of interest really...
Can they really do better than Dell, Gateway, or any other dedicated system builder who has attempted to provide Linux systems and given up?
Yes.
People can see the OS first, rather than just picking a drop-down off some web site. Besides, although I don't know about Gateway Dell buried their offering so deep it was almost impossible to find on the site. You had to go in via some special URL - if you just went through to order a laptop via the normal route, you wouldn't have ever seen Linux as an option.
Also, as far as I remember, the Linux option was actually made more expensive on Dell machines than buying a Windows license.
Any idea how the shareware products work that set ID3 tags to let you use your iPod as a contact manager? Do they just let iTunes handle the database management?
Yes. That's exactly what they do. They set up zero-length mp3 files that have ID3 tags which match contact information.
They become obsolete after Apple released firmware 1.1 though. Firmware 1.1 has a built-in address book and can accept vCards. Stops the ID3-tag trick from being necessary.
I've been a user since beta 4. Beta 4 blue-screened my system, so I got involved with the beta forums.
Since then things improved rapidly, and the company is responsive to what people say. The software is working well for me (final beta, not upgraded to 1.0 as yet) and they even added a playlist-related feature that I requested.
Its advantage over Ephod is that it includes an HFS+ reader with the software. Ephod requires you to have some form of Mac drive-reading software already (MacDrive or MacOpener), whereas XPlay comes with a stripped-down MacDrive driver anyway.
... somebody just needs to roll a nice song browser, and the linux users can have an iPod too.
Well...not quite. There's more to iPod manipulation than just filesystem and IO device support. There's a proprietary database in there too. That would need reverse engineering.
Apparently, Moby has stated that he will not allow any track from 18 to appear in an advert. This follows the artistic slating he got from selling every track off play to advertisers, many of whom were in direct opposition to his status principles (he's a vegan, Christian environmentalist).
So...less people have heard the music. Fans will know there's a new album out, but the casual listener won't. Me, for example. I'm a 'casual' Moby listener - I bought Play because I'd heard the tracks on adverts and liked them, whereas I doubt I'll be buying '18' because I haven't really heard any of it. Except 'Made of Stars' or whatever its true title is, and that really wasn't to my taste.
Well, we've narrowed the discussion to one point, then: refactoring. It sounds like we probably agree on that, too.
Yes, it seems we've achieved that rarest of things - a well-reasoned Slashdot thread ending in consensus!
I definitely agree that refactoring is an investment which has a cost and a benefit. If a piece of code isn't going to be touched again, it shouldn't be refactored.
And that it is the point at which we agree. You see, when I started I used to be all in favour of rewriting anything ugly or inelegant. Anything. Never really thought about the fact that whilst I was doing that I wasn't doing something else.
I'm pleased to say that it still pains me to let old rubbish continue festering - losing that pain would essentially mean that I no longer cared about good code, and I do care about good code. However, I'm now quite a bit more aware about software's place in life and what more appropriate priorities are from the business's point of view. After all, they're paying for me. True for every coder, but the relationship is even more direct in the case of a contractor.
And it's funny I would say this -- I'm a consultant, so I'm not even around to see the long-term damage!
Not sure about this, but I think you're using consultant in the same sense I'm using contractor - it seems to be a US/UK jargon split (I'm in the UK). My title is consultant as well - basically a hired analyst/programmer who not employed directly by the company but instead is paid via a service contract (n-months to do x task, option to renew on both sides).
Anyway, to wrap-up from my point of view it seems as if we've not got a great deal of difference between us. Seems we both feel that:
Use of new techniques for new techniques' sake is bad.
Use of new techniques because they're actually better and more appropriate to the task in hand is good
Project Managers that use new techniques for buzzword-compliance are bad
Project Managers who refuse to consider use of new techniques are also bad
Rewriting (or refactoring) software which will be used again or which needs to fit into a wider framework is good.
Rewriting software which whose task will never alter is of questionable value
Yes, I certainly have seen the sort of projects you mention; I assume that by calling them "CV-driven" projects you mean that they are driven by the desire of the participants to enhance their own CVs.
Yes, that's what I meant. It's rampant in the area of industry I work in (I'm a contractor in the financial sector).
I also should have mentioned another sort of project manager...
Recognise that type too. We have some projects going on like that at the moment - huge, daft systems are built for what is essentially no more than taking a user's input from a client-app and writing it to a database. It's not even a distributed app, and yet it has been written with an n-tier approach and implemented in.Net. Hmm.
Presuming you don't want to engage in a flame war about object-oriented programming or any of the "new techniques,"
Absolutely not. No - I think your reply is a well-reasoned one with which I have no disagreement. My point, which you have understood and seem to have agreed with, was that I see sooo many projects start up with the the aim of using the latest stuff when a far simpler methodology would be more appropriate.
I'm not exactly a veteran, but I've been a professional coder for ten years now (went into contracting because I didn't enjoy the idea of becoming a manager but still wanted my pay to increase). I started of with Mac System 7 and C, have done some small amount of Windows coding, then C++, then Unix and C, C++, Java, shell scripts, Perl...anything really. Anything appropriate. Obviously along the way I've learnt new techniques - the move from C to C++ being one example (procedural to OO). I'm far from against learning new techniques. It's just that I'm only in favour of using them when they're actually needed.
Another example -- they tend to believe that refactoring is bad. With the massive, monolithic, interdependent systems of the past, "you don't touch working code" made sense.
Hmm. Still does make sense to an extent. It depends - if you are going to need to use that code again and it now needs to fit into some new framework, then yes - refactoring is good. However, if it's just going to sit there and run for the next twenty years then why rewrite? It might offend the aesthetics of decent programmers, but if it works then leave it alone.
An example. I've been handed a ton of Perl scripts to look after. They were written by someone who was learning the language as they went along and are, frankly, dreadful. The guy who wrote it accepts this too. I've rewritten various parts of this, improving as I go along, but some parts remain in the dark ages and I'm very unlikely to ever improve them. Why? No need. They work, they will never be used outside of their task (they're database feed scripts - parsing a fixed format file from a proprietary system and just dumping the results into tables), so even though they're ugly as sin I will leave them alone as they're not worth rewriting.
...The improvements in development techniques over the last decade don't apply because of the PM's own slothfulness in keeping his/her knowledge current.
Yes, now this is just plain irritating. As I say, my coding armoury has been added to over the last ten years and I imagine I will need to add more over the next ten years. Things don't stand still. Everyone has their real-life example bugbears about this - my current is use of threading in client apps. Makes things -so- much more responsive from the user's point of view, but many people are scared of threads and won't allow them in.
...a PM shouldn't prevent developers from exceeding the PM's own development skills. Agree?
Slashdot Mirror
and, as revealed in Trial of a Time Lord, has last regeneration is already spoken for and he becomes the evil Valyard (spelling unknown).
Best look after those lives, Doctor. Perhaps he gets an extra life if he scores above 100,000...?
Cheers,
Ian
So, one night whilst out for a drink I grabbed the little packets of sauce that were on the table. I laid down three packets of tomato sauce and said that these three packets could be represented by a single packet of tartare. Then I put down two packets of tartare and asked how many packets of tomato sauce that represented.
That was her first exercise in symbolic representation for about thirteen years. She passed it, and has gone on to take access courses before studying for four years to be a dispensing optician. She's now done her finals, involving such things as ray tracing and equations of quite ridiculous lengths that usually had to be re-arranged and substituted into other equations. We're waiting to hear the results, though she's passed everything else so far.
So there you go. My small contribution to the world of teaching - applied mathematics using packets of sauce in a pub. Not the most conventional maths lesson of all time, but it worked.
Cheers,
Ian
I read it as them implying that the product is cool.
Cheers,
Ian
Oh you know, slouching. Taking a look at the local scenery. This cat's in no hurry, you know?
Cheers,
Ian
From HHGTG (and memory):
The principle of generating finite amounts of improbability...was well understood, and often used to break the ice at parties by making all the molecules in the hostess' undergarments leap simultaneously to the left in accordince with the principle of indeterminacy.
Respectable phycisists said they weren't going to stand for that kind of thing, partly because it was a debasement of science but mostly because they didn't get invited to those sort of parties....
Cheers,
Ian
I can guarantee you that it isn't...
Cheers,
Ian
Interesting one this.
I was working in Singapore for a couple of weeks with my then boss, who I got on well with. We went out for a meal somewhere (I believe Boat Quay for those that know the place) and ordered Chili Crab. A few moments later, a waitress came out with a live crab on the end of a rope asking me if this one would be ok.
A bit surprised, I put my vast knowledge of crustacean quality to use (ie. none) and decided that since it looked like a crab to me then yes, that crab would be fine. The crab was taken away, killed and cooked, then presented back to me smothered in chili sauce.
My boss, who is a vegetarian, was horrified. "How could you do that?", he asked. "Imagine if you knew who that was. That could be Fred!" Well, Fred looked like a reasonably tasty crab to me and so my answer would still have been the same. Even it if turned out to be George...
The point here is that it would have been hypocritical of me to refuse to eat the crab just because I'd once seen it alive. So my answer to your original question is "yes - I would still eat meat if I had to kill and butcher the meat myself".
Oh, just as an aside this lovely lady is a fully qualified butcher, though she works as an optician. She is also my fiancee and the mother of our child - being a butcher doesn't automatically make you a psychopath in the same way that answering yes to the 'peasant killing' question would do.
Cheers,
Ian
What a pointless statement. If designers don't design great Web sites then they are not the best web designers.
The line doesn't state "best web designers". It purely states "best designers". That is to say, generalists.
Cheers,
Ian
Around 1915/1930, an artistic movement arose in France called 'Purism'. The central tenant of Purism is that the 'masses' know better than the experts when it comes to design.
So...lets take an example. A chair. A chair typically has four legs and and back. Totally unremarkable. You can, if you so desire, buy unusual chairs such as this Egg chair, but they are the exception rather than the norm.
According to Purism, the four-legged chair wins. It has been accepted by the masses as functional and fit for purpose, whereas the Egg chair has been banished to the fringes.
So how to apply to web design? Well, take everybody's favourite search engine - Google. Look at the interface. It's obvious where you type, it's obvious what you do with the results. The interface is quick and clean, without being flashy. It is a four-legged chair - functional, useful and ubiquitous.
Now let's compare with the various graph-based graphical search engines. These have a slightly different purpose, but perform essentially the same job as Google. They are the Egg chair of the search engine world - esoteric, and banished to the fringes. Purism would eschew such designs.
Now Purism has its faults - stick with, err..., 'pure' Purism and you'll never make any progress. New designs would be thin on the ground. However, there are some very useful lessons to be learned from the movement in my opinion - changing things for change's sake is bad, keep things clean, make things recognisable...you get the idea.
Cheers,
Ian
Planet Corporate. In these environments, users have locked down desktops, each checked for consistency with a central server via logon scripts, and are rarely able to make many decisions for themselves.
For example, where I am it insists on sticking MS Office icons on my desktop even though I mainly just use Exceed. Delete the icons? Certainly sir, but then they reappear the next time you log in.
The reviewer is absolutely correct on this one.
Cheers,
Ian
Note that I'm not a true believer in this theory - just passing on what I read. Personally, I don't have the evidence either way.
Cheers,
Ian
Yes, can well believe the Da Vinci bit is just pseudo-sugar.
The interesting part to me isn't that Da Vinci was supposed to have created it, it is the fact that photographic techniques may have been in use during the 16th century. As far as I'm aware, that part of the theory is still supposed to be correct.
Cheers,
Ian
That's it. That's what I was trying to remember. I seem to remember that da Vinci was influenced by techniques already developed in Turkey.
Oh, and top name by the way. Been a fan of the Brentford Trilogy for ages...
Cheers,
Ian
Could well be. The bit I found interesting about my post was the inference that photography was already being used by the Turks in the 1500s (hmm...14th actually).
Of course, without any sources to hand I don't have a shred of evidence for this...
Cheers,
Ian
Given the above, I remember reading that one possibility for the Turin Shroud was that it was an early, and I mean early, photograph. Apparently, the Turks had developed a method of photography involving canvas and I -think- silver nitrate (maybe mercury?). This was in use during the 1500s, as far as I recally the article saying.
Now, the photography they were talking about wouldn't bear much resemblence to a camera as we would recognise it. I believe the subject had to be very still, covered in this impregnated cloth and then the light would do the rest.
I realise this is a very sketchy post, but I'm at work right now and really am not able to spend ages chasing down the relevant information. Just chucking this one out for a bit of interest really...
Cheers,
Ian
Yes.
People can see the OS first, rather than just picking a drop-down off some web site. Besides, although I don't know about Gateway Dell buried their offering so deep it was almost impossible to find on the site. You had to go in via some special URL - if you just went through to order a laptop via the normal route, you wouldn't have ever seen Linux as an option.
Also, as far as I remember, the Linux option was actually made more expensive on Dell machines than buying a Windows license.
Cheers,
Ian
Yes. These days Apple quite definitely is NeXT...
Cheers,
Ian
Yes. That's exactly what they do. They set up zero-length mp3 files that have ID3 tags which match contact information.
They become obsolete after Apple released firmware 1.1 though. Firmware 1.1 has a built-in address book and can accept vCards. Stops the ID3-tag trick from being necessary.
Cheers,
Ian
Took me a while to get this. Switch to viewing in Detail mode - you can then drag the tracks around to the order you choose.
Well, in playlists at least. Haven't tried it when just looking at albums or the whole song list.
Cheers,
Ian
Ephod is free, but in order to use it you require Mac-drive reading software such as MacOpener or MacDrive. XPlay comes with this built-in.
In other words, a direct comparison should include the cost of getting HFS+-mounting software in the first place.
Cheers,
Ian
Since then things improved rapidly, and the company is responsive to what people say. The software is working well for me (final beta, not upgraded to 1.0 as yet) and they even added a playlist-related feature that I requested.
Its advantage over Ephod is that it includes an HFS+ reader with the software. Ephod requires you to have some form of Mac drive-reading software already (MacDrive or MacOpener), whereas XPlay comes with a stripped-down MacDrive driver anyway.
Cheers,
Ian
Well...not quite. There's more to iPod manipulation than just filesystem and IO device support. There's a proprietary database in there too. That would need reverse engineering.
Cheers,
Ian
So...less people have heard the music. Fans will know there's a new album out, but the casual listener won't. Me, for example. I'm a 'casual' Moby listener - I bought Play because I'd heard the tracks on adverts and liked them, whereas I doubt I'll be buying '18' because I haven't really heard any of it. Except 'Made of Stars' or whatever its true title is, and that really wasn't to my taste.
Summary: no music in adverts = less exposure.
Cheers,
Ian
Yes, it seems we've achieved that rarest of things - a well-reasoned Slashdot thread ending in consensus!
I definitely agree that refactoring is an investment which has a cost and a benefit. If a piece of code isn't going to be touched again, it shouldn't be refactored.
And that it is the point at which we agree. You see, when I started I used to be all in favour of rewriting anything ugly or inelegant. Anything. Never really thought about the fact that whilst I was doing that I wasn't doing something else.
I'm pleased to say that it still pains me to let old rubbish continue festering - losing that pain would essentially mean that I no longer cared about good code, and I do care about good code. However, I'm now quite a bit more aware about software's place in life and what more appropriate priorities are from the business's point of view. After all, they're paying for me. True for every coder, but the relationship is even more direct in the case of a contractor.
And it's funny I would say this -- I'm a consultant, so I'm not even around to see the long-term damage!
Not sure about this, but I think you're using consultant in the same sense I'm using contractor - it seems to be a US/UK jargon split (I'm in the UK). My title is consultant as well - basically a hired analyst/programmer who not employed directly by the company but instead is paid via a service contract (n-months to do x task, option to renew on both sides).
Anyway, to wrap-up from my point of view it seems as if we've not got a great deal of difference between us. Seems we both feel that:
- Use of new techniques for new techniques' sake is bad.
- Use of new techniques because they're actually better and more appropriate to the task in hand is good
- Project Managers that use new techniques for buzzword-compliance are bad
- Project Managers who refuse to consider use of new techniques are also bad
- Rewriting (or refactoring) software which will be used again or which needs to fit into a wider framework is good.
- Rewriting software which whose task will never alter is of questionable value
Seems like a balanced viewpoint to me.Cheers,
Ian
Yes, that's what I meant. It's rampant in the area of industry I work in (I'm a contractor in the financial sector).
I also should have mentioned another sort of project manager...
Recognise that type too. We have some projects going on like that at the moment - huge, daft systems are built for what is essentially no more than taking a user's input from a client-app and writing it to a database. It's not even a distributed app, and yet it has been written with an n-tier approach and implemented in .Net. Hmm.
Presuming you don't want to engage in a flame war about object-oriented programming or any of the "new techniques,"
Absolutely not. No - I think your reply is a well-reasoned one with which I have no disagreement. My point, which you have understood and seem to have agreed with, was that I see sooo many projects start up with the the aim of using the latest stuff when a far simpler methodology would be more appropriate.
I'm not exactly a veteran, but I've been a professional coder for ten years now (went into contracting because I didn't enjoy the idea of becoming a manager but still wanted my pay to increase). I started of with Mac System 7 and C, have done some small amount of Windows coding, then C++, then Unix and C, C++, Java, shell scripts, Perl...anything really. Anything appropriate. Obviously along the way I've learnt new techniques - the move from C to C++ being one example (procedural to OO). I'm far from against learning new techniques. It's just that I'm only in favour of using them when they're actually needed.
Another example -- they tend to believe that refactoring is bad. With the massive, monolithic, interdependent systems of the past, "you don't touch working code" made sense.
Hmm. Still does make sense to an extent. It depends - if you are going to need to use that code again and it now needs to fit into some new framework, then yes - refactoring is good. However, if it's just going to sit there and run for the next twenty years then why rewrite? It might offend the aesthetics of decent programmers, but if it works then leave it alone.
An example. I've been handed a ton of Perl scripts to look after. They were written by someone who was learning the language as they went along and are, frankly, dreadful. The guy who wrote it accepts this too. I've rewritten various parts of this, improving as I go along, but some parts remain in the dark ages and I'm very unlikely to ever improve them. Why? No need. They work, they will never be used outside of their task (they're database feed scripts - parsing a fixed format file from a proprietary system and just dumping the results into tables), so even though they're ugly as sin I will leave them alone as they're not worth rewriting.
Yes, now this is just plain irritating. As I say, my coding armoury has been added to over the last ten years and I imagine I will need to add more over the next ten years. Things don't stand still. Everyone has their real-life example bugbears about this - my current is use of threading in client apps. Makes things -so- much more responsive from the user's point of view, but many people are scared of threads and won't allow them in.
Agree.
Cheers,
Ian