Not just No, or Hell to the No...

[vikingchyk]

Hot off the press email from a luser :

"Can you dump the database into a spreadsheet?"



It's so ludicrous, it's maddening AND hilarious. Or I'm just losing it. Again.

Explanation for non-database people :
...
No, there is too much. Let me sum up : database <> spreadsheet. Fin.

I'm hoping she means she wants a report. Please???

Note: You know you've lost it when you take too much time making sure the smilie order accurately depicts your reaction. And when you use more than four smilies in a row.

[Silent-Hunter]

The only way that would be reasonable is if the database is small. Very small.

The only database related things I know is that they are usually huge, and I can program one in COBOL. A little. I don't know that much of it.

[Gizmo]

We can do that with our systems. And then we can wait about 30+ minutes for the damn spreadsheet to open. And that's the *small* datasets.

I used to work in one place that had a spreadsheet of basically everything they'd done to date in the month on all fronts which was pulled from the accounting system. If you didn't set it to not calculate formulas and changed one thing on the 'day sheet' which pulled the data together into their metrics.... better find something to do for an hour and a half or crash the file and start again...

[Chromatix]

Yeah, spreadsheets can be surprisingly slow. I sometimes use them for working out engineering problems, but all too often I get frustrated enough to want to start coding it up in a proper language.

To be fair, I *used* to think databases and spreadsheets were essentially the same thing. A field was a column, and an entry was a row. But that was back in the 80s - now I understand that there are two key differences:

1) A database can be made *type-safe* - so you can't put your mother's maiden name in the date-of-birth field, for example.

2) The most important difference is a matter of scale. Databases are designed to live on disk with millions of entries, and you only load the entries you actually need to work with. Spreadsheets are designed to live in RAM with perhaps hundreds or thousands of rows, and you're dealing with the whole thing as an integrated whole.

Most databases are also designed so that they can be accessed and updated by more than one user at a time. It's quite hard to do that with a spreadsheet.

[EricKei]

If it's a small, single-table/flat file database...which would kinda defeat the purpose of using a database...? Then the answer - at best - would be ...Ehhh....

As you said, I really hope she means "report" (with any luck, she doesn't know the difference; I have, more than once, encountered people who use raw spreadsheet printouts in lieu of proper reports) -- Maybe reply as if she had asked for one -- "OK, which date range and parameters do you want...?"

No, there is too much. Let me sum up : database <> spreadsheet. Fin.

Just tell her that doing such a thing would be inconceivable.

[vikingchyk]

As you said, I really hope she means "report" (with any luck, she doesn't know the difference; I have, more than once, encountered people who use raw spreadsheet printouts in lieu of proper reports) -- Maybe reply as if she had asked for one -- "OK, which date range and parameters do you want...?"

If she actually knows. Half the time when we get these requests, it's actually a puppet request from the front office Chief of Staff, so the request is vague AND wrong, so it has to be redone several times, after far too many meetings to find out what CoS actually wants.

The CoS is the same person who we were in a meeting with once, discussing monthly reports, and she asked for a printout of all the database tables. Ummm, what? Why??? Oh, AND the code that creates some of the most complex reports we had. What? Why??? To make sure we're doing it right?? Well, that might make sense, if you had any background whatsoever in database management which you don't. No! Our head DBA finally talked her out of it. If it hadn't been for the arboreal massacre, I was all for giving it to her and seeing her reaction. Here's your schema, here are the tables, here's the data, here's the SQL and all the supporting code-y format-y gibberish - have fun!

Just tell her that doing such a thing would be inconceivable.

You keep using that word...

[Ironclad Alibi]

The CoS is the same person who we were in a meeting with once, discussing monthly reports, and she asked for a printout of all the database tables. ... Oh, AND the code that creates some of the most complex reports we had.

Would all of those printouts actually fit in her office?

That reminded me of this User Friendly comic.

[Nemesis44UK]

I'm sorry, but unless she had a similar job to yours, I don't see what the suck is. I've used packages where it is possible. Not slightly desireable, but possible.

Why would she know, if she's just a user?

[otakuneko]

"Sure no problem -- can you approve the downtime, overtime, on-call time, and upgrades necessary to do all that?"

[sms001]

I don't see what the suck is....
Why would she know, if she's just a user?

Sometimes it isn't whether common sense or familiarity should prevent ludicrous requests, or even the person doing the requesting, sometimes it's just the request itself. Just like there's nothing inherently wrong with the (Item doesn't scan.) "Guess it must be free! Yuk, yuk, yuk." scenario but sometimes the sheer inanity wears you down. I'm sure some people out there really think that that is original and funny, and vikingchyk's user may think her request is correct and reasonable, but it can still be frustrating, hence the vent.

[EricKei]

"Sure no problem -- can you approve the downtime,...?

Manglement> "No, no, there's no money in the budget for all of that. Just work smarter, not harder, and I'm sure you won't have any issues. Have it completed and on my desk by Friday morning."

[Amadan]

Eurgh.

This sounds familiar. I got asked recently why i couldnt just backup a 90tb (yes tb not gb) database to "an external hard drive"

"Just zip it to make it fit"
Just no!

[Silent-Hunter]

User Name

I think they make tapes that big. But not hard drives, heavens no!

[gremcint]

it wouldn't be hard to script a quick program that will take the tables from A-z and put them into comma separated values and then open that in excel, honestly this is a case where giving them what they want may just be the perfect karma solution.

[mhkohne]

it wouldn't be hard to script a quick program that will take the tables from A-z and put them into comma separated values and then open that in excel, honestly this is a case where giving them what they want may just be the perfect karma solution.

But Excel has an upper limit on the number of rows and columns it'll deal with. So you could make the CSV file easily enough, but then they'll bitch when Excel chokes.