I seem to have developed some allergies after living in Utah for the last 20 or so years. I flew in from the Bay Area on Friday evening only to have a rough night sleeping. It didn't get any better on Saturday night after a busy day of skiing and taking care of chores around the house. I'm sure it wasn't a picnic for my wife as she said I snored like a chainsaw both nights. I know from experience that when I snore loudly, I will continually wake myself up in the middle of the night and not get the rest I need.
Last night I didn't resort to anything extraordinary to get a good night's rest. I could have taken any number of medications but didn't. Instead I just applied one of those Breathe Right strips to my nose and slept very soundly. My wife informed me I wasn't completely silent last night, but much better than the past two. It is amazing what a piece of tape stuck to a stiff wire can do to help get through allergy season. While the Breathe Right people would have you believe they provide a technical solution, it is much less complicated than those provided by the pharmaceutical companies.
Non-technical solutions are sometimes the best solutions. I once worked on a reporting system where we were required to provide daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly reports. The reports were fairly complex and required a significant amount of time to create. When it came time to write the yearly report, it was determined that an administrative assistant could take the monthly reports, add up the numbers, and assemble the yearly report more quickly than it would take to write it using the existing report writing tools.
Unfortunately non-technical solutions don't work all the time and should be used only when appropriate. Otherwise we wouldn't have created computers in the first place.
Showing posts with label reports. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reports. Show all posts
Monday, April 22, 2013
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Too Much Data
Yesterday I started a database report and let it run all day. When I was ready to leave work and the report was still not done, I let it run overnight. I figured if I came in this morning and the report was still running, I would try to figure out what the problem was and see if I could fix it.
I got into the office this morning and the report was still running. I had to have the report done this afternoon to send to management. I had no faith that the report would complete by the time it was due and so I started looking into other methods of creating it. On the off chance my report was going to eventually complete, I let it run.
Most modern databases are fairly smart, have efficient algorithms, and are pretty good at figuring the best way of doing things, but they are not perfect. I was able to come up with another way of getting the information and discovered an assumption I had made about the data was false. Instead of asking for a subset of the data from a single source, I was asking for all the data from multiple sources joined together in such a way that was overwhelming. Discovering this problem allowed me to finish the report and get it out on time.
This whole experience underscored the importance of not making assumptions.
I got into the office this morning and the report was still running. I had to have the report done this afternoon to send to management. I had no faith that the report would complete by the time it was due and so I started looking into other methods of creating it. On the off chance my report was going to eventually complete, I let it run.
Most modern databases are fairly smart, have efficient algorithms, and are pretty good at figuring the best way of doing things, but they are not perfect. I was able to come up with another way of getting the information and discovered an assumption I had made about the data was false. Instead of asking for a subset of the data from a single source, I was asking for all the data from multiple sources joined together in such a way that was overwhelming. Discovering this problem allowed me to finish the report and get it out on time.
This whole experience underscored the importance of not making assumptions.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Simple Solutions
A couple days ago I discovered that I have two databases with overlapping data. That means they both contain copies of the same data. Unfortunately one of the databases has been getting updated while the other one hasn't. There are two possible solutions: one is to require the data to get manually input to both databases, and the other is to write a little program that updates the updates the second database when something changes in the first. The trick is to figure out which solution will work the best.
Writing a little program means more work for me. Not only do I have to write the program, but I also have to test it and then maintain it. Having someone manually update two databases is simple to implement but is more error prone. The gating factor on which solution to use boils down to how often updates are made. Looking at my particular situation, I will most likely be writing the automatic program. So when would someone choose the manual process?
The best example of leaving something manual is with annual reports. Perhaps you have sales figures for each month and each quarter. Since the annual report is a simple matter of adding the figures from the quarterly reports and is only run once a year, that can often be left as a manual process. This is especially true given the cost of an administrative assistant vs. computer programmers. Now if I only had an administrative assistant.
Writing a little program means more work for me. Not only do I have to write the program, but I also have to test it and then maintain it. Having someone manually update two databases is simple to implement but is more error prone. The gating factor on which solution to use boils down to how often updates are made. Looking at my particular situation, I will most likely be writing the automatic program. So when would someone choose the manual process?
The best example of leaving something manual is with annual reports. Perhaps you have sales figures for each month and each quarter. Since the annual report is a simple matter of adding the figures from the quarterly reports and is only run once a year, that can often be left as a manual process. This is especially true given the cost of an administrative assistant vs. computer programmers. Now if I only had an administrative assistant.
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