I have been programming various types of applications for quite a few years now, and it never fails to amaze me how some people think they actually know what the hell they are doing.

Just working on a fairly large database is a task in its self. You have to make sure that it is secure, available, correct, and most importantly working to the customers benefit. However, when creating a database for the first time or developing the actual layout of the tables and the relations you must ask your self a few vital yet simple questions:

1. Will this database be used to store large quantities of data?
2. Will this database be accessed by a lot of people at once?
3. Will this database be used by an application I or others write?
4. Will this database one day make someone slowly want to murder people?

I really think that these are the core questions anyone developing a relational database will need to consider. Without the right answers to these questions you are bound to make someones life hell.

I always though that a database was supposed to be easy to use. I mean, the layout of the information/data in the thing was supposed to present it’s self in a logical fashion and by doing so allow speed, increased efficiency on many planes, and like I have said before a smile on the customers face.

(Let me qualify that last little part…In many cases your customers are stupid enough to believe that in this day and age you need to have an SQL statement more then 5 lines long at maximum and it wait more then 15 seconds for the query to complete. So you know you are dealing with people who have no idea whats going on and it is your responsibility as their programmer to make sure those things NEVER happen.)

Still on a daily basis I run across things that I can’t believe I am looking at. They make me feel stupid at first because they are so mangled and complex I must assume that the person who wrote it was a genius. I don’t want to take someones work and instantly criticize it, because it looks like a train wreck. I try to find the method to their madness…

When I ask questions I am looked at like I am an amateur.

Then by the time the day/week/month/my life is finished I realize exactly what it is doing and I laugh, then start cussing the fucker who wrote it out because all it did was move a file and drop the name into the database with a timestamp yet it took in excess of 50 lines of Perl code and more then 3 function calls to do, not including any SQL or calls to the DBI objects.

Why do so many programmers go the extra length to do things the hard way? (Not to say I haven’t made the same mistakes in the past, all I am saying is that you ought to learn from them.)

I am tired of dealing with idealistic college students and smelly old hippies who think they need to ensure themselves jobs for the next 10 years by writing code that makes my eyes bleed. Who wants to work that long any way?

I just wanted to say that…

I am sure you can agree, if not then you can join him.

Alright, if McDonald’s wasn’t bad enough with their mutated chicken-foam nuggets and disgusting fries…they had to go and try to encroach on the one establishment that has brought nothing but joy and happiness to people all over America. I can of course only be talking about the one and only Chick-Fil-A. They are slowly trying to offer similar products in hopes to sway you from your loyalties.

So what sent me over the edge is that McDonald’s has finally gotten rid of that God forsaken “Ba-da-ba-ba-ba” bullshit, and come up with a commercial where a crotchety old woman yells at her husband when her family guzzles down their glasses of iced tea. Then secretly she retreats to the kitchen where she is caught filling a pitcher with a glass of nothing but yes you guessed it, McDonald’s new iced tea. As if it wasn’t painful enough they get a fucking lady with a quasi-southern accent trying to sound all sweet talking about how I should buy shit from McDonald’s. Finally, the commercial closes with the Grandmother giving her nosy little twat of a grandson a giant lollipop she pulls literally out of her ass and says she will kill him with it if he talks. Ok, maybe I was lying about the killing part…but I am pretty sure she pulled it out of her ass.

This is a blatant laugh in the face of Chick-Fil-A. I can only hope that McDonald’s accidentally poisons millions of people with their new iced tea, which will force them to go bankrupt and finally give that scary ass clown what he has coming.

I hate you McDonald’s…I hate you for all of the smiles you put on children’s faces while you shave years from their lives, I hate you for that infernal song I hear even when I sleep, and I hate you the most for trying to be something your not.

In conclusion I feel we should firebomb any McDonald’s trying to mimic the great and beautiful Chick-Fil-A. As we laugh at the kids with Downs syndrome and the crack-heads that come scurrying from the burning building pay homage to the magnificent and eat a whole large tray of Chick-Fil-A chicken nuggets. Or, if your not up to all the murder and arson charges…just don’t eat there.