I was talking to my friend tonight about my random problems with the database at work. There are just random things that happen to it, that we cannot figure out for the life of us. We’re planning on switching to PostgreSQL but it’s slow goings. In the meantime, we deal with it best we can.
Anyway, here’s what I was yammering about to him on IM:
“The thing is, theres two types of problems.
Problems you can track down. They are logical. You can see them break. Something you did, something you changed, or flipped, or activated, or deactivated or turned off or ran or installed or uninstalled or clicked will have made something else happen.
I can handle those problems. I might go bald pulling my hair out figuring out where it comes from, but usually you can find them okay by applying common sense, _patience_, logic and perseverance.
The second type of problem is ghosts in the machine.
When nothing has changed, everything is green lighted to be okay, things have been stable for days / weeks on end, everyone is happy, there are no odd logs, warnings, errors, red flags, bad signs, omens, instincts.
And something breaks.
Windows is haunted.”