foxpro.catalyst «

FoxPro workBLOGS and MORE… . . .

Four client visits in the last five days. Been really really busy.

Currently downloading 200++ e-mails in the background (subscription/mailing lists related and spam of course).

I still have around 5000+ feeds queued on my rssbandit.

I am tempted to zap them all so I can catch up but there are tons of interesting stuff in there. So it’s just there unmarked for future reading.

Partly it intimidates me already.

If humans would work hard at present will the future hold enough resources for him to be lazy and do whatever he really wants without thinking of acquiring minerals..?

Or is this an endless battle of acquiring resources in order to fill the basic needs of life..?

Permutations sample code in Visual Foxpro.

Lack of posts as of late… I know.

It’s a gruesome battle between deadlines (stress the ‘s’) and me. So far the deadlines are clobbering me. The seductive entity known as ‘sleep-sleep-get-more-sleep’ has been helpful to the dark side.

Hopefully I could regain the balance in the force before this month ends.

Today is the 19 of January. Qsez celebrate the liberation from asterisks this very day.

Something to really smile about.

It is almost two weeks already since 2005 got initialized but somehow I still can’t get over the holiday-be-a-bum-hang-over that has clouded me for weeks.

(Which feels good really…)

The vacation from work was fun… and qs already summarized one of its ‘highlights‘ in her blog.

I still can’t get myself into the coding zone. The programming mood still refuses to swing in. Probably, having to create a user guide as one the first things to do this year also contributes to that lack of spark.

Probably not…

Anyway… better buffered than purged, belated happy new initialized year, everyone.

May we accumulate enough productive results, stuff and whatever and even dangling references before nThisYear becomes nThisYear = nThisYear + 1.

A couple of days ago I posted some semi-disorganized thoughts about the 2GB-limit on Visual Foxpro databases/tables.

While reading this post about VFP9 on Channe9, I found a link to this article:

The Ultimate Power and Speed of VFP
Handling Extremely Large Data Sets
By Val Matison

It is a very informative read. A must read.

It also discusses areas such as speed (where Foxpro really shines), data compression, data access, maintenance, backup and restore procedures, data integrity, data corruption, security, power and speed and a lot more.

Months ago I was ranting about FoxproAdvisor.com‘s lack of dates on their archived articles. Now I know why it lacks them.

Information about VisualFoxpro is ageless, backward compatible and beyond.

Craig Berntson explains about Visual Foxpro/Foxpro and its 2GB database limit.

Honestly when I first heard about programmers complaining about the 2GB limit, my first reaction was who in Earth’s time would like a 2GB database?

That’s HUGE. Too huge.

That would slow down things that even Foxpro’s legendary Rushmore would have a hard time grinding.

Besides, there are tons of workaround for this limit.

Which I believe is not exactly a workaround per se, but a more effective means of solving the problem.

A better approach… a faster approach.

Better… that It should be the first choice instead of opting for the database to 2Giga-bloat that much in the future.

(‘Giga-bloat’… I like that.)

As one of my friends would say, Warcraft III’s greatest strength is its unit limits. Unlike the first version of Warcraft, where you can train warriors and footmen, drag them all to the opponent’s camp, find some soda or coffee while they’re marching forward… and when you’re back the enemy is leveled to the ground.

Sans the challenge…

But no… the 2GB limit can be seen not as a weakness… but rather a strength.

A well planned and normalized database will most likely prevent things from reaching that limit.

Memos and general fields or any objects that tends to bloat the database should be saved on a different location with only the path and the filename stored in the database.

No need to cramp all those jpegs and bitmaps into the database.

You can even link to external textfiles if you like instead of opting for the memo field in some cases. You can even separate the primary key and the memo field on a different normalized database if needed.

Of course a developer/programmer should think of the future… database files do grow.

Like a pineapple pie in the middle of the sacred forest… it grows.

But then, you can chop things… save records in tables created dynamically everyday.

You can even do it monthly… or store database separately by year… by month. That would even make things more organized. More compartmentalized.

You can easily create a ‘fetching algorithm’ that gathers only the necessary fields from the chopped databases let’s say for a report… or a statistical view.

The solutions are endless…

Yet inspite of these solutions, you still find yourself where you would still prefer databases that can handle more than 2GB in size, and chopping just won’t do… or normalizing, or calling the thundergods of database compression… there’s always MSSQL, MySQL, FireBird and the likes.

Pardon the disorganized thoughts… it is 3:33AM already, I can’t think well and I can’t find a way to knock myself down to sleep.

Calvin Hsia is on a roll. First he posted the Intellisense: inspecting live objects information a couple of days ago. I refrained from linking to it then since almost every Foxpro-related blog I have on my RSSBandit points to it already.

Today, he discusses Using non-Automation compatible types and Creating mailing labels automatically.

Why do we always link to Calvin Hsia you ask?

Well aside from his being the Visual Foxpro lead developer, his blogs are very helpful and informative.

(Insert your adjective here) programmers/developers always look beyond on how to just merely use a thing. We are also interested on why things are done that way.

Looking back to my high school algebra teacher… it’s more of a ‘how was the formula derived?’ and not only how to use the formula.

So why the link again..?

If the lead developer of the programming language of your choice shows passion towards his work, reflects that passion through sharing, sharing snippets, sharing informative stuff, sharing the VisualFoxpro experience… you tell me and I’d be glad to link to him/her.

It’s not only Calvin Hsia who shares these things though… the whole VS Data Team has a blog which includes Ken Levy, YAG and John Koziol from the VFP team.

… ah one of those reasons we prefer VisualFoxpro.

It’s a Saturday, and I’m turning off my coding mode for a while. I’ll turn on the GFX mode and finish up the SeventhSense 2004 Project before the 2004 part of the title becomes obsolete.

Programming.Tip-2004.1208-001

Save your work. Print your codes. Go out. (Away from computer… near a cafeteria or trees or something.)

Review them. No not the trees, the code.

Enjoy the breeze.

With the chirps of the bird as your soundtrack (not the usual techno/trance/industrial beats), sometimes you’ll find more ways to tweak your codes (and even debug some problems) than when you are in front of the monitor.

Mark them. Note them for improvement later.

The printed codes can also be used for future references.

Program framework references.

Be careful though when you choose to review your codes in benches near trees.

Some trees are keen enough to recognize that the paper you are using came from them and would play weird tricks on you.

Remember Newton’s Apple..?

Tradition has it that Newton was sitting under an apple tree when an apple fell on his head, and this made him understand that earthly and celestial gravitation are the same. This is an exaggeration of Newton’s own tale about sitting by the window of his home (Woolsthorpe Manor) and watching an apple fall from a tree.

However it is now generally considered that even this story was invented by him in his later life, to try to show how clever he was at drawing inspiration from everyday events.

Link

Two many versions of the story, right?

But the actual story really was Isaac Newton was under the tree holding a pen and a paper formulating how to understand women.

He was near the Eureka moment where every flood of facts on how to understand the behavior and all of women (which could have been beneficial to generations and generations of men) were moving in into his brains and wisdom, when the tree intentionally let that apple fall on his head.

The women-related formulae/principles were completely forgotten and he ended up with boring gravitational-related stuff instead.

Too bad.

Actually that was only a mild trick. Just wait when trees start calling meteorites.

PageFrames are heaven-sent. It makes a programmer’s life easier. It also helps in achieving that ‘lesser-clicks-the-better’ principle of mine when designing interfaces and forms.

Declaring public variables is not that needed anymore… nor do I have to go through the process of passing parameters from form to form.

It makes things more organized. Easier for the user too… straight forward and smooth flowing.

Remember the user may not always be right… but you should treat her as a queen. Pamper her with a good, well-organized interface. That is why some software companies invest in the interface.

Probably one of the reasons why some less-stable/hole-infested/half-baked systems are more accepted than a more stable/secure one with an interface only a nerd with an IQ above Mt. Helens can understand.

For some… the interface is even considered the application.

The interface _is_ the application.

The users don’t care much about the leet-haxored computation process you made behind things. As long as the correct results are there.

Presented well inside a well ‘formatted’ interface.

It is already 2:07AM in the morning. I think I need to crash. I would like to continue coding but the ref’s empty… food supply shortage. I don’t like it when my hunger overtakes the sleepy mode.

Speaking of Mt. Helens…

Helen’s getting prettier everyday. No not the mountain.

No… not the Helen of Troy… nor the actress that played her.

I’m referring to Helen, the Elastigirl.

Sexy!

I really need some sleep.

Can People Really Program 80+ Hours a Week..?

Slashdot already has tons of insightful, funny and drug-infused comments so I won’t delve into the logic, statistics, effects and mechanics of working 80+ hours a week.

Hmm… 80 hours a week is 80/7, that would be 11.42857 hours a day if we include the day of rest (Sunday). It would be 13.33333 if it’s 80/6 though.

To be exact my TimeCalcAdvanced algorithm shows it’s 11:25:43 hours in 7 days and 13:20:00 hours in 6 days.

Let’s assume that half of the programmer population has a life and half doesn’t, so let’s average these two results. With that we’ll get an average of 12:22:52 hours.

12:22:52 hours in a day in program mode.

Which makes me think if we should include the time when the programmer is ‘programming’ himself waiting for the mood to swing in? For the chi to re-align or something..?

Should we also include the times when he/she is pretending to be doing programs?

OK… enough of this already.

When I saw this feed on my RSSBandit last night, I wanted to go into a quest… to try if I could code for 12-13 hours for 7 days. I even started doing it from 12:01AM to 2AM but after three simultaneous calls from clients this afternoon, each separated by 2 hour bus rides, which are scheduled for next week, I don’t think I could complete that quest.

Besides as I am writing this part of the blog (I multitask, browse and watch Shrek 2 on DVD) it is 11:49PM already and I’ve done only 8.5 hours coding for this day.

I have this Excel file where I scribble down the accomplishments of the day… per hour, starting April of this year so I have some ‘stats’. Also from the same file I found out that it’s either I code straight for the day and am too tired to code at night… or bum around all day and work at night until the wee hours of the morning to make up for it.

The most I’ve done is 11 hours in five days last June but that was only good for 5 out of 30 days in that month.

I cannot remember too clearly if I have done that much lengthy coding during my previous work.

But then again… like anything in this world, it’s the quality that counts… and not the quantity.

Even my pterodactyl pet knows that.

… and breathes that principle.

The lesser clicks… the better.

That’s how I see things when designing interfaces/forms.

Right now I think I’m squeezing too much command buttons and processes in one of my KWMS forms. I printed a screenshot already so that I can analyze things away from the monitor.

Sometimes things are more efficient that way.

Especially when I’m beginning to interpret KISS as ‘Keep It Sexy, Sweetheart’.

Taking a break from the regular midnight coding to post this: Visual FoxPro 9.0: Still Here, Still Relevant.

Every FoxPro blog is linking to that article by David T. Anderson already.

A highly recommended read for the ‘renegades’.

I’d like to post parts of that article here and discuss some points but at 2:37AM I still have to wrap up a lot of things.

I’ll give an overview though of what I am currently tackling at the moment.

Imagine a project where you thought you have planned everything already… the database structures and flows, made things ready for networking… optimized the filter/querying speed… tweaked a lot of parts, normalized and de-normalized carefully the databases and laid things out so that future upgrades would not be difficult for your system.

Fast forward by 17 months in the future (which is the present time)… you’re in a situation where three offices separated by two and a half blocks apart will be using your program. Each office has the power/rights to edit mostly any part of the database…

… which is cool since you’re application is ‘network ready’ already… problem is there are no immediate plans to setup one yet and to interconnect these offices.

The diskette/log-modification was part of the worst case scenario during the planning phase but I wasn’t thinking I’d be diving into that.

Until now…

Beakman was wondering why I was not posting for the past three days before yesterday.

And just recently, I received a related inquiry from someone in India.

Aside from the fact that I refrain from posting those I’ll-be-out-in-N-days/weeks-no-blogs-blah-blah(who-cares-who-fsckin’-cares) type of scribbles in here, I am also finishing up modules for two of my projects… HRAEI and SJH.

(HRAEI is an employee-related databanking system (201) for education-type institutions and companies while SJH involves medical history and records.)

HRAEI, in the future will probably be used in some places in this country separated by islands, so making things ‘archipelago-ready’ is something I am planning in advance. I’ll discuss that one later.

For those three days, I’ve been extending the working hours to 4:45AM instead of the usual 3AM limit… which was really 5:30AM since it was only yesterday that I discovered that the clock in this computer is 45 minutes late.

No wonder I’m beginning to see things.

But I created and posted a one-time blog at TheSpoke.NET. The reasons are there so I won’t bother re-posting things in here. If I’ll do that, we’ll have this spaghetti-type of codes already.

Blogs are like Procedures and Functions you know. Well at least that’s how I see it sometimes. Instead of answering queries again and again, I fire up this blog, post some info and link the one questioning to a certain part of this blog that answers his questions.

OK… it is 3:33AM already… I need to crash.

But before that, allow me to leave you one snippet of the dawn:

   do while not eof() 

      for i = 1 to nCount

         cSTAT = 'PERSPOGR.STATUS' + NUMTOSTR(i, 2)

         cSTAL = 'PERSPOGR.STATUS_' + NUMTOSTR(i, 2)

         aSTAT(i) = &cSTAT

         lStat = iif(aSTAT(i) != '00000', .T., .F.)

         replace &cSTAL with lStat

      endfor 

      skip

   enddo

One of those little macro hacks of the night. (Storing the values in the array has some purpose which is not included anymore in the above snippet.)

I’m just showing here how an nCount*N lines of code can be squeezed into a factor of nCount by using macro substitution and by having good naming conventions in your field names, object names and variables.

WildFire here… over and out.

Time travels so fast.

It was exactly at this time when we arrived here yesterday from a tough client visit where I have to re-program two database applications on site.

Something that I rarely do.

Usually, every little detail is checked and compiled before I do the visits. If I re-program things on site it means somewhere along the line, I screwed up.

Imagine this… you’ve worked your arse out on one module for two weeks… sometimes even sleeping at around three in the morning. Polished, tweaked, tested and done everything on that module. Then at the site, when you’re about to present things you realize that you haven’t created a link to that module from the main menu.

I was calculating the number of ways and the angle of projection in case I opted to throw the monitor from the third floor of that building.

Good thing I was able to bring along the necessary files to fix and recompile things. Apparently it was linked but I forgot to set the form’s ShowWindow properties to ‘Show in Top Level Form’ which prevented it from displaying that module properly.

That was problem number one.

The second problem encountered was from a different application which shows a little error that doesn’t really affect the program but is still annoying which was apparently caused by a blank value in the program database configuration file.

Quite nifty since the error was able to pass two of my error handling mechanisms. I have to fire up the VisualFoxpro tool once again on site just to check the real cause of the problem.

The third problem was the trickiest.

(Sometimes I wish I could just choose treat and hand out chocolates every time some cybernetic super forces are doing this to me.)

The GITS database application (which was the first program I made for that client (which has been working smoothly for three academic years already)) started ‘acting up’.

That application contains five table reports on one of its parts. Tables I, II, III and V works fine but the report on Table IV fails.

What makes the problem unusual is the Print Preview works fine. It shows all the records/statistics that is needed but when it starts to print things already, it shows only five records.

Sometimes six.

It even shows the report legend which partially rules out printer hardware-related problems.

I spent around an hour or so mapping out the steps I’ve been doing and the results. (And let’s not even enumerate the permutation done on that part)

After a number of tries and failures and chants, it worked. It turns out that some blank statistics on the table screws up the printing part. Which is still quite mysterious since everything is good in the Print Preview part.

A copy of an older version of the program which I usually store in the server in case some problems come up, did help solve some problems.

But if you’d asked me, I still think the chant did solve the problem.

Ah… one of those days.

I can’t understand how some humans can read with pumped up music playing against their ears.

Some humans can’t understand too how I can manage to work with Nine Inch Nails noise or Paul Oakenfold’s trance beat whirring against my ears.

Honestly I can’t understand why they can’t understand.

You see… programming is one of the ultimate battles between man and machine. (Hell yeah!)

You and your ‘logic neurons’ tapping the computer while it patiently and keenly watches in the background barfing out mocking words of encouragement once in a while in the form of error messages disguised in 07200000xHEFX statements, which most of the time the programmer pretends to understand.

Well in fact, they don’t.

It’s like being in a room with two rude aliens from x::country talking in their x-ian dialect smiling at you. They smile at you, you smile back at them not knowing that they’re talking about your protruding nose hair already.

So why again the loud music?

One reason is that every battle scene needs a soundtrack. The bloodbath is nothing if you can’t feel the swish and cuts through the music… the beat… the chant.

It’s a battle everytime you’re infront of the PC, problem is… everything is owned by the machine. The hypnotic monitor in front of you, the sinister keyboard that strains you and the harmless looking mouse which in truth poisons your libido.

They’re all part of the big domination plan orchestrated by 00086-entities.

In fact if you’re pointing out the previous programmers and software engineers that created those nifty down to the core codes and thinking that it’s a man versus man battle actually… you’re wrong.

Terribly wrong.

Around 42% of these humans have defected already to the side of the machine. 28% are cyborgs in disguise created by the machines itself and the rest are unknown entities. Perhaps included in that classified and unleaked information.

You see when machines mark something as a secret or make that lSecret(ComponentName, 1000) == .T., it is really set to .T. and it will remain that way unless the machine itself overrides it’s 1024 layered 2048-bit encrypted password protection.

With humans… secrets are well, secret which is a good object of discussion as long as the other human refrains from telling it to another human without him/her making a blind promise of not telling it to five more humans in one day.

But this secret topic deserves a different post. Let’s go back to loud music.

Everything is owned by the machine except the music.

The language of the soul… music and the soul… two things you can never digitize. Well at least no classified information pertaining to that process is ‘in the open’.

Music helps you beat the machine… pumps up your neurons and distracts the machine. In fact running WinAmp would add a thread to a CPUs work.

But the machine is more powerful than that. In fact the crashes you often see is just one way of pretending that an error occurs. When a certain application ‘shoots’ and fires up events that corrupt the memory, or let’s say a lame driver poisons the kernel-mode heap, the computer core knows that.

In fact it can prevent it but since he’s too busy playing poker during the ‘normal office human hours’, he fires up screens that manifests the problem. Besides if he fixes everything the world will produce more ‘bad’ programmers… and trust me when I say the world has enough of this already to supply 10 evolutions of humankind.

Now you’re wondering why it is colored blue.

VOTERGASM: “Our goal is to have 100,000 young voters catalyse 250,000 orgasms by November 3.”

Humans are weird.

If ever a certain programmer/mathematician (aka real problem solver) is brave enough to enter politics, he or she will have my 512-bit support.

That is if logic does not prevent him from diving in.

Let me post the title again: Sex pledges to boost US vote turnout.

Come on… what’s the problem here?

Possible low voting turnout. (or ‘turn on’ if you prefer seeing it that way).

Is that the real problem? If it is… then why?

Because of lack of sex?

Beep.

Let me re-phrase that:

   If ConvertToLogical(nAmountofSex) == lRare

        NUMTOSTREQ(nVoterTurnout) = 'Low'

   EndIf

That line of code sounds very illogical to me.

Why can’t humans identify the ‘real’ problem, find the ‘real’ root/cause of the ‘real’ problem and give ‘real’ solutions?

But then again… what if… considering that human beings, being the epitome of irony, have always preferred the approach that defies logic… realize that:

   IsNOTAlways(REALSolutions == EffectiveSolutions) == .T.

Then we’ll be having more goals and solutions similar to the first line above.

Imagine you have a combo box.

This combo box holds (and displays) the ‘NAME values’ which are records in database F but returns the ‘IDNO values’. (I’ll explain the logic behind this on a different post… later.)

Database F contains only those two fields: the ‘NAME values’ which are mostly items/descriptions and its corresponding ‘IDNO values’ (or CODE or CODENUMBER whatever you prefer, lovely-lady-of-mount-lithsoma).

Now you ‘morph’ your combo box so that the text part would accept manual character entries and automatically filters the DropDown Items after its InteractiveChange event is triggered.

Now here’s the question…

If the user types, let’s say… the characters ‘CHART’, would you filter all the records having the string ‘CHART’ in it or just the records starting with the ‘CHART’ string?

In other words would you:

set filter to cBUFFER $ (upper(alltrim(DBASE.NAMEVALUE)))

… or would you:

set filter to cBUFFER $ substr(DBASE.NAMEVALUE, 1, nLEN)

… given that:

cBUFFER = upper(alltrim(this.Text))
nLEN = len(alltrim(cBUFFER))

Just some little issues I’m pondering on at 2:30 in the morning.

(And I am so tempted already to activate the comments feature of this blog.)

1:10AM code-break.

I’m leaving the IDE window for awhile to ransack the fridge… recharge the mind with some coke-in-cans and some [classified infood-mation]. (Har har!)

During the client visit this morning, it was qs who ran the show. She installed the updates of five different ILS modules, while the database-fox-jedi was there beside her enjoying two palaboks, two pepsi cola in cans and one Fudgee Barr.

She finished the second chapter of QUE’s Using Visual Foxpro book last Saturday. Did the installation this morning and in the afternoon scribbled out the database structures/normalization and blue prints for the FDDF project (a new client/database project of ours).

Yes… qs ‘major’-ed PolSci, but code-mentoring someone who is included in the top three of the ACET n years ago (where n < 10) is... honestly both hard and easy. She’s quite stubborn sometimes (Replace(This.Line, ‘sometimes’, ‘most of the time’)) and claims she was on a different line when God was giving out the lPatience(.T.) and lOrganized(.T) values. Yeah. That hard… and we’re still scraping the ‘easier and wholesome parts’. But then again, I believe for one to really learn how to ‘code’, comsci-related skills are secondary to what I’d call ‘comsci discipline’. Feel free to fire up your blogs and agree/disagree with that belief of mine.

Just random stuff before I’ll dive once more into some codin’ in the middle of the night.

Inanimate objects talk. The problem is you just don’t listen. Try listening. Trust me you’ll hear things with more sense and sometimes which are even more profound than the usual bullshit you hear in radios and TVs.

During client visits to companies and if you’re like me who suck terribly at memorizing names (I do remember faces well (I can even identify a person’s offspring without prior knowledge)), do check the organizational charts. Even if this organizational charts don’t have pictures on it, you can still figure out things.

Trust me it works with me all the time.

This is what I learn from watching Robert Redford spy-flicks. Ah yes… ALIAS and 24 too.

Whoever said ‘databanking’ is easy hasn’t tried it yet. Or if he/she has tried it once, does it like the way newbie-comsci-student-I’ll-do-this-for-the-sake-of-passing-something type of programmer.

Of course ‘databanking’ values/fields in tables A B C D and E are easy. But try organizing them in such a way that they will not fsck things up when we add tables F and G a year from now. And there’s more. If you merely replace the value A.field when a new data for A.field is encoded then you’re missing a lot. There should be a history of these changes, a log of who changes it and all.

I’m not even mentioning the challenging parts yet.

I’m currently mentoring qs in learning VisualFoxpro (we had our first heated argument on database structure and normalization yesterday). So far she’s done with QUE’s Using Visual Foxpro first chapter. Gave her an overview of OOP and have let her tinker with the Visual Foxpro environment as well.

So far so good. Probably she’ll include this learning experience in her blog one of these days.

It made me smile when she told me she’s nervous. I can’t remember the last time I had that ‘nervous-y’ feeling though I know I had some when I was coding during college days.

Ah well… Nervous.code != Angst(Coding) right?

I got nervous though when I was presenting the ILS and GITS program last week. Darn. I really was. Most of my clients are referrals and last week was one of those outside that referral linkage.

Which makes me wonder… do seasoned professional marketeers get nervous too during their new potential client presentations?

There’s a difference though when the marketing staff is presenting things and the person who is actually making the program/product. The other outweighs the other in some aspects and vice versa.

Now if only I can fuse the best of both worlds.

Though I strongly believe creating a good++ product is the best way to sell things.

Unlocked and loaded. Node-333 released.

I still have some spare time while waiting for someone to dress up and prepare and I have already written the .scx/.prg files in my transportCD-R so I’ll fire up these blog-related tools of mine first.

I have been loaded with quite a number of projects to finish last month (… and now overflowing to this month… I’ll list them later) and as you have noticed blogging has been a little rarer than usual… except for the normal foxpro-related links and stuff. Sharing those news-link type of blogs is not that time consuming… just 2 to 5 minutes at most.

It could even take lesser than that if I’m not on a dial up and I don’t have IKIA taunting my restless pet tiger on my back every now and then.

I haven’t had time to post weird thoughts as of late. That sucks.

I used the word ‘loaded’ instead of ‘busy’. These days everyone seems to be busy or at least pretending to be ‘busy’. Or perhaps really really busy that they can’t even stop and utter the word ‘busy’ anymore.

I encourage humans to blog and they give me that ‘I’m still busy… I don’t have time’ blah-blah-blahs.

Oh come on… blogging is like stopping and smelling the roses.

What is more soothing and relaxing than talking about database/non-database related programs, flows and structures after working for 10 straight hours working on database-related stuff?

Uhmm… OK… there are far better options.