Ship of Fools: Cruddy file handling (by people and software)

Thread: Cruddy file handling (by people and software) Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

Copied from the TICTH thread: There seems to be a market for complaints about file handling, both by people and cruddy software (especially Sharepoint). Here's the very place for it.

Originally posted by Gwai:

So you're too smart to follow normal server protocols are you, darling? Too good to be bothered with normal tasks like putting files where they go or assigning that task to someone else? Well guess what, I know you think your group is the only one that matters, sweetie, but others of us exist. And believe it or not, we think that our work is worth doing. There is absolutely no reason that I should have to go to the archives, find you are just to cute to archive your materials, adn then go not to the server where such work belongs, but to your own personal folder as if this whole department were a wee little wiki. So at least 20 people's work for a couple of years is to live in your personal folder, and apparently not even be archived in an timely fashion, because the filing system our server has didn't entertain. Well bless.

Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckonwythe:

Originally posted by Gwai:
So at least 20 people's work for a couple of years is to live in your personal folder.

Your network admin allows people to have rights to other people's personal folders? He belongs in hell too, then!

Originally posted by Sioni Sais:

I bet everyone who has come within spitting distance of file handling has seen it done badly and probably illegally.

How about a thread for it? Damn, I'm sure all I have to do is mention Sharepoint.

Then blow me down, this happened!

Originally posted by ken:

It is logically impossible to consign sharepoint to Hell.

Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:

Especially since it was born in hell and has never strayed from home.

Originally posted by Kyzyl:

I would consign Sharepoint not just to Hell but into the mouth of Satan.

------------------------------------------------
Over to you folks. File mishandling now has its own home. Maybe someone will even take data confidentiality seriously.

Sioni Sais
Helpful Hellhost

Posted by RooK (# 1852) on :

[face reddens]

...SHAREPOINT!

[cleans spittle off of screen]

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:

Originally posted by ken:

It is logically impossible to consign sharepoint to Hell.

But perhaps one could consign Hell to Sharepoint. In common, it seems, with all other right-thinking people, I have nothing good to say about that particular product, but could rant all day about the way it gets foisted on us by the kind of people who think that documenting the fact that correct procedures exist is the same as ensuring that you get the answer right.

Posted by comet (# 10353) on :

I have never come across or even heard of this particular beastie.

apparently, I'm a lucky girl.

Posted by RooK (# 1852) on :

The central function of Sharepoint appears to be to prove a central location to host files and information that you can then not allow anyone to see. It has the added benefit of having both a deeply-flawed search function and no standardized methodology, so that even when you do manage to get granted access you still probably won't find anything.

We call it Hidepoint.

The real insidious facet is how the primary proponents of Hidepoint in any given organization are people prone to magical thinking, and assume that because they put something somewhere on it that it then gets beamed telepathically to every relevant person.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

Our policy boasts of the advantages of seamless integration with the hideous beast for all our engineering design files.

If every engineer was a mechanical engineer with Autocad and nothing else, that might even be true (at least for small values of true).

Unfortunately,...

[ 14. June 2013, 04:06: Message edited by: Leorning Cniht ]

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :

May I slip in the room to articulate the new compulsory hell call tagline?

This is such a lame hell call.

*exits room*

As you were.

(You heard it here first)

Posted by comet (# 10353) on :

oh shut up you useless windbag.

Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :

Sounds like a division of Sirius Cybernetics.

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :

quote:
Originally posted by comet:
oh shut up you useless windbag.

Oh baby. I love it when you talk dirty to me...

*shiver*

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

I am a certified Sharepoint developer. And I can tell you that Sharepoint is, in fact, an excellent product. If you get it designed and built right.

If, as with most places, someone just bangs it in without a lot of thought or consideration, and without any idea of how it is going to be used, and supposed to be configured, it is a Shelobs lair.

So yes, Sharepoint as it is so often implemented is hideous. That is a blame that should be shared between the product, MS and the people who put it in place.

I wish I could say there was a better system, but there isn't. There is probably a big market for someone who could build one.

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

quote:
Originally posted by RooK:

[cleans spittle off of screen]

Venomous, one trusts?

Posted by Rosa Winkel (# 11424) on :

No-one else use Dropbox?

Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :

Worksite is a very good filesharing system. However, it does tend to work best when you tell your colleagues that the document you've created actually exists.

Failing that you can do what a certain, ahem, individual of my acquaintance does and have a screaming fit because you created the document as your own special secret and then put it in your personal workspace instead of in the client file and now no one has a bloody clue where to find it at five seconds' notice BECAUSE YOU NEVER BLOODY BREATHED A WORD OF IT TILL NOW AND I'M NOT SODDING PSYCHIC [Mad]

. And they can't get into your personal workspace, because, y'know "personal" workspace.

(Oh, and by the way, no the problem isn't that the files weren't saved correctly, it's that you've had five sodding years(!) to take that client to court over their unpaid bill and you decided to finally do something about it less than two weeks before the legal delay runs out. But it's not your fault because nothing ever is. [Mad]

)

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

Dropbox is great for personal use, but I can't imagine it would be enough for a larger company.

Actually it sounds like it would be rather like the personal folders I was talking about. For the record, Miss Amanda, since we are moved here now, the folders are open access because they are really for transferring large files that don't fit into email. It's just that some idiots think it's appropriate to run long term projects from their own personal folders. The local admin has ranted to me about it more than once, but unfortunately responsibility moved hands while that project was getting started and now it is far too late to kick the appropriate people in the pants.

Posted by RooK (# 1852) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I am a certified Sharepoint developer.

Meaning that you've learned to type with your toes, because of the straightjacket?

quote:
And I can tell you that Sharepoint is, in fact, an excellent product.

Would you care to define "excellent"? I mean, it seems reasonably stable, as far as systems go. And fairly modular, inasmuch as it can be formatted to have most kinds of data shoved into it. But our objections aren't so much technical as philosophical. Sharepoint is like a personal grooming chainsaw. It might be an excellent chainsaw, but we're still going to hate having to use it.

Frankly, if you're going to share data in any kind of meaningful and/or cooperative way, a system fundamentally designed as an unsearchable labyrinth full of default-locked doors seems like the single stupidest concept possible. The only people this architecture could possibly appeal to are the security paranoid non-doers who fail to appreciate that they've got humans working on their projects. Humans who, when annoyed with the data labyrinth, will just work off of local/thumbdrive copies most of the time - thus utterly fucking the security AND the cooperation.

Still, at least it's not Lotus Notes...

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
RooK: The central function of Sharepoint appears to be to prove a central location to host files and information that you can then not allow anyone to see. It has the added benefit of having both a deeply-flawed search function and no standardized methodology, so that even when you do manage to get granted access you still probably won't find anything.

Thank you for bringing your issues above the table. Feelings of apprehension —fear even— are completely understandable when we are confronted with something new. Every change causes resistance, that's completely normal. You just need to be forward-thinking, leverage a 'can do' attitude with your colleagues within a spirit of teamwork, so that all aces will fall into place and everyone's core competency is actioned. By the end of play, you'll be laughing about your early nervousness about this.

Posted by PeteC (# 10422) on :

Le Roc, did you leave any cliche or hackneyed phrase unsaid?

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
PeteC: Le Roc, did you leave any cliche or hackneyed phrase unsaid?

I hope I got them all [Big Grin]

Once I worked in a company that introduced a terrible implementation of SAP R/3. I understand something about software, and had multiple complaints about its usage. All I got in return though was this kind of management-speak, nothing at all about the software itself [brick wall]

Posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe (# 5521) on :

For those of you not familiar with Sharepoint:

As I understand Sharepoint (and correct me if I'm wrong), it's sort of like an Intranet -- i.e., an internal website -- that can host files, discussion groups, databases, bulletin boards, calendars, etc. and can share them among users or groups. It's supposed to be easy to administer and easy to use. But it isn't.

Although it has something of the look and feel of a website, it is actually a SQL database.

So if you are reasonably familiar with web design software, or reasonably familiar with SQL, you might think you could administer Sharepoint like you would administer a website or any other SQL database. But you can't. You must use the built-in administrative tools, which are far from intuitive and actually quite difficult and cumbersome.

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

Sharepoint is the symptom. Microsoft is the disease. And you actually have to pay to catch it.

May I suggest Zimbra, which is GPL meaning open source and free, and you can even run it on your Microshaft server in a free virtual machine like VirtualBox or VMware. And if I can deploy this, with never having had any formal computer training whatsoever, anyone can. And if you don't like Zimbra or have different needs, then Drupal.

What ultimately needs to be called to hell is closed-source, proprietary software that you have to pay for and aren't allowed to modify. No one should pay for any software ever. So there.

[ 14. June 2013, 19:50: Message edited by: no prophet ]

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:
PeteC: Le Roc, did you leave any cliche or hackneyed phrase unsaid?
I hope I got them all

Once I worked in a company that introduced a terrible implementation of SAP R/3. I understand something about software, and had multiple complaints about its usage. All I got in return though was this kind of management-speak, nothing at all about the software itself

Nope... you missed out "synergy". Fucking amateur.

Like many here I make my living from software and I have to say that software systems would be perfect if we could only find a way of avoiding users having to use our systems.

Users are the disease.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by deano:

Like many here I make my living from software and I have to say that software systems would be perfect if we could only find a way of avoiding users having to use our systems.

Users are the disease.

It's worse than that. I've seen projects from a two-line brief, through development and acceptance test then the minute it is installed for live use .... Oh dearie me. Before anyone even uses it. Simply installing the thing for live use causes the finest software to back off like a reluctant debutante, making the Monday morning after the traditional big-bang go-live weekend such a hell on earth.

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

Rook - actually, now I think about it, excellent is not the right word. It can be made to work well, but is only considered acceptable by MS. It is a long time since I actually used it.

What I meant is that, if you set it up right, in a way that matches what it needed, it can be a very productive system.

But it is MS, and I was momentarily lulled into some MS marketing speak. I will do so no more. There are some parts that are hideous, but front end users should not see them. Too often they do.

Straightjacket? I broke out of that ages ago.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

Sharepoint really isn't a "product" never mind a "system" its more a marketing term for a bundle of different bits of software that fit together more or less neatly. The same is true of the even more nebulous ".NET" - really that's little more than a codeword for "doing development the Microsoft Way".

Yes you can use Sharepoint for all sorts of useful things if you put a little work into the design, and if you keep strong central control over how the users work. But the same would be true of any centralised document managment or workflow system made from any software - including free software. Buying Sharepoint doesn't save you from having to do the work. That's probably why it has such a cruddy reputation - it is bought by idiot managers who know nothing about software and think they can avoid dealing with people who do know about software by paying extra for an off-the-shelf product. Then they find they have saved themselves nothing, they still need someone to do the design and development, all they have done is buy the tools before hiring the plumbers.

Sharepoint also, in its current instantiation, looks and feels mind-numbingly old-fashioned.

And there is not much it can do now that Lotus Notes couldn't do two decades ago. In a much more friendly user and development environment.

Posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe (# 5521) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:
And there is not much it can do now that Lotus Notes couldn't do two decades ago. In a much more friendly user and development environment.

That really isn't saying much. "Lotus Knots", we used to call it.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
deano: Users are the disease.

Bad programmer [Disappointed]

I have worked in IT for a grand total of six months (it was mostly Java/PHP/SQL in those days), but every time I finished something, my boss came around and put himself in the role of the dumbest client you could imagine. My product would only pass if it got through that test.

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:
deano: Users are the disease.
Bad programmer

I have worked in IT for a grand total of six months (it was mostly Java/PHP/SQL in those days), but every time I finished something, my boss came around and put himself in the role of the dumbest client you could imagine. My product would only pass if it got through that test.

Six months eh? Well okay. But if you'd have stayed around you would have seen that it isn't that the systems (not single program's) don't work properly, but that users will always find a way to use systems in an inappropriate way and manage to break things downstream.

Imagine using Word not to write documents but to use it to design screen layouts or map business data. It can do these things but when it gets to a certain point it is a stone bugger to pick up the pieces when they become too unwieldy. Then scale that up to a bespoke system but with Excel spreadsheets or Access databases bolted on somewhere within the the entire business process. Ugh!

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:

quote:
Originally posted by ken:
And there is not much it can do now that Lotus Notes couldn't do two decades ago. In a much more friendly user and development environment.
That really isn't saying much. "Lotus Knots", we used to call it.

Notes was one of the simplest development environments I've ever seen. Before IBM got hold of it and tried to turn it into a webserver and it all got very complicated and tedious (though not quite as tedious as SharePain seems to be). Though to be fair they had very little choice - they were charging through the nose for Notes but once everyone got into web stuff it became possible to knit your own from free software. The result (in those days anyway) wasn't as good as you might have been able to do with Notes, and was certainly harder to implement, but free is an unbeatable price point. IBM had to do something to justify their soon-to-be-milkless cash cow to the shareholders so they turned Notes into Domino, adding all sorts of half-arsed features and turning a program that was very good at doing a few things into one that was less good at doing some more things.

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
I hope I got them all

Jesus, that was masterful, LeRoc. I like you, and I want to jam my thumbs in your eyes right now.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
deano: Imagine using Word

I'm sorry, I cannot imagine using Word.

quote:
Kelly Alves: I like you, and I want to jam my thumbs in your eyes right now.

I wish you sweet dreams too.

Posted by Stercus Tauri (# 16668) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I am a certified Sharepoint developer.

I am not surprised. From my own experience, most software developers are certifiable and many more should be certified. I have a special place in my heart for those who designed the unspeakably crapulous MS Word 2010, a vile, inefficient, user-hostile program that could drive you back to WordPerfect 5.

Posted by alienfromzog (# 5327) on :

To be honest, I've never got over the death of WordPro. So so sooooo much better than Word of the same age but out of date now.

AFZ

Posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe (# 5521) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Stercus Tauri:
MS Word 2010, a vile, inefficient, user-hostile program that could drive you back to WordPerfect 5.

To which many of us would gladly go if we could.

Posted by MarsmanTJ (# 8689) on :

I still haven't found anything that I wish to do in Excel or Word that Office 97 wouldn't do. They even stay stable when opening files. Unlike Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac, which barely works when you open .docx on the same machine and crashes on a routine basis. Now imagine using that and trying to use it to interconnect to a SharePoint server. It flat-out does not work like it's supposed to.

I freelance for an IT firm (doing linux server admin and php/mysql dev) and it didn't take me long to establish two fixed rules:

1) I do not work on any site using Joomla (which could easily have a hell thread on it's own)
2) Any client who uses a Windows Server (which inevitably seems to have SharePain installed for reasons best known to the Almighty, or more likely his counterpart below) has to email me the files they wish for me to work with.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

No matter that I know what the thread title is, every time I read it as 'Cuddly file handling'.

But on the basis of what's been posted, I'm (even more) glad I left my penultimate employer just as they were bringing in Sharepoint. (My other reasons are that they docked coffee breaks from our timesheets, and installed the big plasma screens showing how long you were spending on each user help call. And not in a good way.)

[ 16. June 2013, 20:05: Message edited by: Firenze ]

Posted by TomOfTarsus (# 3053) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:

quote:
Originally posted by Stercus Tauri:
MS Word 2010, a vile, inefficient, user-hostile program that could drive you back to WordPerfect 5.
To which many of us would gladly go if we could.

I hope this isn't a violation to simply say that WordPerfect is still out there (current version X6), and yes, it is far superior to Word. I was finally forced to transition to Word this year, and the only way I can survive it is to use templates prepared for our reports by our resident Word dumber-down - i.e he turns off Auto-everything and defines styles, did the cover pages, footers, etc, so we don't have to watch them go into unimaginable contortions every time we try to make a reasonable change.

I've been at computers since tape and punch card days, written code in 4 languages (including a pretty good sized, GUI-based data handling program), done real-time assembler and hexidecimal coding, and never have I ever seen a more obtuse and non-intuitive program like Word.

I don't know how far the thread has moved on since the quoted posts, this is just my axe to grind!

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by TomOfTarsus:
<snip>
I've been at computers since tape and punch card days, written code in 4 languages (including a pretty good sized, GUI-based data handling program), done real-time assembler and hexidecimal coding, and never have I ever seen a more obtuse and non-intuitive program like Word.

I don't know how far the thread has moved on since the quoted posts, this is just my axe to grind!

Grind away!

You're an old-time IT professional and as another (who used to be able to read eight-hole punched paper tape) I have to say that software is written by us, not for us. Too much software is written to be used in a dozen different ways, so that former users of umpteen competitors can migrate to a single product. Horrible lumpy stuff, the size of a planet with any number of moons orbiting it; what's the chance of it working? Worse still, how do you debug something that big?

Posted by TomOfTarsus (# 3053) on :

SS:

I agree, though actually I'm a mechanical engineer who codes as necessary. And though it's quite un-hellish to say so, I would also say that it's a sight easier to criticize code than it is to write it - I think my code size went up by at least a factor of 2 or 3 just trying to trap possible errors and keeping everything on the proper course.

The problem here (AFAIK) was that the author of WordPerfect had a (well deserved) software patent on portions of his code and file format, most notably the "Reveal Codes" feature. So M$ had to take an entirely different approach. It stunk so horribly (and still does, in my opinion) that the only way they could achieve market domination was to undercut WP by basically giving the program away. Why should you buy a word processor when one comes installed on you computer?

Maybe I'm wrong. But give me WordPerfect any day of the week; I even offered to maintain my license at my own expense! I mean, we put everything out in PDF so who cares...

A tad more hellish (or asinine, take your pick): Since no one wanted to help me write the GUI interface, I was able to compose my own error messages... you can about imagine... [Devil]

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

4 languages?

I lose count at about 19!

(though of course in the end it depends on what you cont as a language)

Posted by TomOfTarsus (# 3053) on :

[Hot and Hormonal]

Well, for a guy who's not supposed to be a prefessional programmer, I figure that ain't too shabby...

<slinks off to hide under his rock>

Posted by Stercus Tauri (# 16668) on :

I exaggerated a little in my earlier post when I yearned for WP5. I still have WP8 on the computer, as I use some very old files, and have been using it regularly again since I had to install the latest MS Word. Like all earlier WP, it can read almost anything (except recent MS Word) and is fast and efficient. As TomOfTarsus pointed out, if you publish as PDF, it doesn't matter; you've saved a lot of time and you have the format of your choice (inserting and placing pictures is easier, too).

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

No one should ever pay for word processing software. Jesus recommends http://www.openoffice.org/ or http://www.LibreOffice.org as first choices. Free and as or more functional than Word and the extras you have to pay for. There are other choices as well. But then maybe you don't pay the bills where you work.

Posted by TomOfTarsus (# 3053) on :

I dunno, no_prophet. "The laborer is worthy of his meat" sayeth the Lord, and writing code creates significant discomfort in one's posterior - it is a difficult and thankless job.

Where we could get all Purgatorial is over how much should be paid, the price the robber-barons get for it vs. what they pay to their code-writing minions, etc. Of course, if you go purely by free-market economics, the fact that some have chosen to code for free gives you that alternative.

And Stercus Tauri, [Axe murder]

I know there's a whole raft of WordPerfect lovers out there, thwarted by M$ and company policy. Too bad for Corel. I hope to grab WordPerfect X6 soon, on my own steam.

[ 20. June 2013, 11:37: Message edited by: TomOfTarsus ]

Posted by Dogwalker (# 14135) on :

This thread has been a real education to me. When I started my current job, about 5 years ago, there was a Sharepoint in place for group shared data.

It's driven me nuts from the beginning. I know a document exists, and I still can't find it. Searches are useless. I've taken to copying things I might need onto my own PC.

And let's not even talk about rights to update and save things!

I'm really pleased to find out that I'm not alone in my frustration.

BTW, we're in the process of moving important stuff into a Wiki.

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

Service is what my office pays for, and pays well, to a local computer company. We don't pay for software. It's open source. I've donated to open source projects. Much prefer that model to the corporate robbers.

Posted by 3rdFooter (# 9751) on :

I am cursed with conversations that go like this

Business: Give us Sharepoint. All modern business is done on Sharepoint

Me: What business function are we trying to fulfil? What are your requirements?

Business: we don't know but we know Sharepoint will solve our problems.

Me: What are your problems?

Business: Our problem is that we don't have Sharepoint! The nice man from Microsoft explained this to us in words we understand!

Improvise on theme for 8192 bars

Business: our costs are very high and our Sharepoint system doesn't do what we want. Fix it IT boy! Make Sharepoint fun like it's suppossed to be!

Me: Maybe Sharepoint is the problem?

Business: You are right. Move it onto a Sharepoint cloud service. That will fix things.

Me: [Mad]

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