Desdaemona, databases and other things that don't go *bonk* in the night ...
It has been spoken of to the boss man, StormBringer, and has had a mention or two in OOC but, to formalise things:
I have taken on an 'apprentice', a mini-me if you will, who will, over the days, weeks and months ahead pick up some of the arcane chicanery that is the meld of our beloved Desdaemona, the underlying database, and the malarkey that can, and does, go on on the server that runs and supports all those fine things.
Over the past while I had been thinking about doing this and a couple of potential prospects had caught my eye but nothing ever really came of it. What firmed up the decision to be more proactive in searching for the apprentice was the reappearance of the delightful Alta Nova, who had been away from these shores for quite a while. To paraphrase a little our first conversation was close to being: "How long you been doing this? You're going to die, train someone! Oh, and hello ..."
As it happened someone had just popped their head over the parapet and a few chats ensued and, well, one thing led to another. I asked, they said, "you must be f-ing kidding, not even flowers and a film first?" which I took to be a yes!
And thus, Amethine was inducted behind the curtain into the mysteries of Desademona ...!
I have no intent of doing anything silly like dying, or going away, but in computing circles there is a concept abhorred by techies, that of SPOF: Single Point Of Failure. A very simple concept meaning if you want something to be resilient, get two (or more) of them. And that includes people. If I had, god forbid, wandered out in front of a bus, there may well have been issues if any problems arose, or even little events like the recent migration between servers. Someone would have been found capable and willing to step in and sort stuff out, but coming in cold on something is a lot of stress and work!
And that is why we know have two of us who are 'in the know', or at least 'getting there'
Treat Amethine with respect (as you should be doing to anyone, any way!), and do not bombard her with questions and stuff. Her brain has enough on it's plate dealing with me force-feeding it stuff!
