Ever Shambling Onwards...

The russian cowboy built eyebleeding database from hell is back.

This morning I was informed I needed to do some work on it. I set aside a day and a half and started girding myself for the horrors to come.

About 25 minutes ago I started work on it (having done a few other bits and bobs in between).

About 10 minutes ago I finished.

It just worked. I did the sensible straightforward thing and it just worked. That database has never done that before. It's always been a case of having to work out what the hell is going on, sending test data through the systems, debuging and tracing each and every minute detail, identifying the strange and arcane ways in which it operates and them adding small changes, then undoing them and trying again, and again, and again, and again...

This time it just worked.

I'm confused now - my world is broken.

Well, I've been working on the project with the eyebleeding database today. It's been... interesting. But productive. I have now, at long last, started producing things from it that work. If I'd rebuilt it from scratch I'd have finished the lot by now, but alas it's a live database that I can't even modify.

Still, I now have a set of four or five forms to create to get info from this database, allow editing, validate the new information and then put it back in. Any other database, this would be simple, or at least easy to tell what nightmarish SQL is needed. With this one? It makes my eyes bleed with cthulhoid horror.

So, one down, some more to go. I say some more because it's so horrific that I keep finding new little terrors that I need to re-create frontends for. Each time I think I've identified what needs doing, a new little bit creeps in.