I've just had quite possibly the stupidest question ever from a so-called developer. My messaging system will import from either an XML, XLS or CSV file. This guy has opted for CSV. He's just sent me an e-mail :-

what is the character ( , ; or what ) between two fields in the CSV file

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Something witty goes here.....

Jorg Gray Ltd Edition Watch Number : 313631

Ahhh, what an idiot, priceless.

I don't get it

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Large format print & graphics

One our interfaces uses, as an input, a set of .csv files, however as it contains blocks of punctuated text, a comma could not be be used so it's pipe delimited.

To me, it's not that stupid a question to be honest.

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and from the beginning think what may be the end.

Ahhhh, look who's the idiot now

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Large format print & graphics

Probably me...

Delphi'll be along in a minute to tell me to shut my PM gob and let the techie's handle this sort of thing.

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and from the beginning think what may be the end.

Dinny_G said...

One our interfaces uses, as an input, a set of .csv files, however as it contains blocks of punctuated text, a comma could not be be used so it's pipe delimited.

To me, it's not that stupid a question to be honest.

CSV = Comma Separated Variable

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Something witty goes here.....

Jorg Gray Ltd Edition Watch Number : 313631

There's no such thing as stupid questions, just stupid people.

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Hosting | Colocation | Connectivity | Network Security | VoIP

NotoriousREV said...

There's no such thing as stupid questions, just stupid people.

That's blue sky thinking that is.

Why don't we run it up the flag pole and see who salutes it?

The point about dumb questions still stands, however, it was a poor example.

A girl I used to live with me once asked me if the bell sound from cows walking around was coming from a physical part of their body.

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+ Non-limited edition of the Exige 240R
- Uninspiring soundtrack

duncs500 said...

A girl I used to live with me once asked me if the bell sound from cows walking around was coming from a physical part of their body.

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This ^

A work colleague posted on FB recently that his g/f had asked what animal her HOG roast sandwich came from.

Not as stupid as being employed in the financial services to remove 4 zeros from each of half a million lines of .csv files.

Did it in an afternoon and stared out of the window for the next six months.

Delphi said...

Dinny_G said...

One our interfaces uses, as an input, a set of .csv files, however as it contains blocks of punctuated text, a comma could not be be used so it's pipe delimited.

To me, it's not that stupid a question to be honest.

CSV = Comma Separated Variable

that doesn't necessarily have to be delimited by comma

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and from the beginning think what may be the end.

It's made an even more stupid question when there are samples of each type of import file included with the software.

Of course, they are cunningly hidden in the install directory and named "CSV Sample Import File.CSV", "Excel Sample Import Spreadsheet.XLS" and "XML Sample Import.XML". The whole process is then made even more difficult by dastardly references to the import process (mentioning said files and their location) in the documentation, which is further obfuscated by being buried away in a chapter entitled "Importing Data From Other Systems". All of which is information this guy has and has had for the last 3 months.

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Something witty goes here.....

Jorg Gray Ltd Edition Watch Number : 313631

240PP said...

duncs500 said...

A girl I used to live with me once asked me if the bell sound from cows walking around was coming from a physical part of their body.

That's just one that I can remember, it was constant ridiculous questions. We had fun with it, but regularly had conversations to the tune of "She must be taking the p!ss, nobody is that stupid.".

My mate was boning her, and so we told her that spunk was carcinogenic so she stopped giving him gobbles.

Updated December 13, 2012 at 4:03 PM

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+ Non-limited edition of the Exige 240R
- Uninspiring soundtrack

My mate Matt used to be a service upholsterer for various sofa companies. At one point, he worked for Crazy George's and covered the more interesting parts of Merseyside.

Basically, scallies would call up and complain about the ofa and he'd go and do repairs etc. whilst the householders would be trying their best to get a new sofa/full refund/compo etc.

One house he went to, the lovely lady owner complained about a mark on her leather sofa. The mark was natural scarring in the hide (and not even a particularly bad scar) so he explained to her it was a natural scar.

Imagine Margi Clarke playing "Her" for the voice/accent.

Her: "Whaddya mean, luv?"
Him: "At some point the cow has probably caught itself on some barbed wire or something and picked up a scar"
Her: "What cow?"
Him: "The cow the leather came from"
Her: "Are you fuckin' tellin' me dat dat sofa used to be a fuckin' cow? Gerrit out of my fuckin' 'ouse!"

Updated December 13, 2012 at 4:27 PM

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Hosting | Colocation | Connectivity | Network Security | VoIP

Dinny_G said...

Delphi said...

Dinny_G said...

One our interfaces uses, as an input, a set of .csv files, however as it contains blocks of punctuated text, a comma could not be be used so it's pipe delimited.

To me, it's not that stupid a question to be honest.

CSV = Comma Separated Variable

that doesn't necessarily have to be delimited by comma

Um, so what do you think the word 'comma' means....

A delimited or seperated string or variable etc does not have to use a comma as the delimiter character , but a COMMA separated one sort of does...

Updated December 13, 2012 at 4:37 PM

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Impreza WRX STi Spec-C V-Limited Toshi Arai Edition/ GTR/ Panda 100HP Pandamonium/ Insignia CDTi 160

I've an end-user of a client's software that uses pipe delimited comma separated variable files too.

You might have heard of them. They run a search engine. It's quite well known.

It's like cancer.

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Tim

Balance Bikes from STRIDER & Kiddimoto, HARO BMX Bikes to suit from age 4

Most low life's can't grasp the concept of a cellular iPad. There really is no bounds to how epically stupid some people are. Having a lack of knowledge is absolutely fine, if you don't know it then you don't know it but to lack the intelligence to grasp such a fundamental idea I find mind blowing. How do these people even manage to breathe and walk at the same time?

Delphi said...

CSV = Comma Separated Variable

I always thought the V stood for Value. So it's as basic a file as you can get, plain ASCII numbers separated by commas, easily editable in a simple text editor.

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