blender
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Post by blender on Nov 20, 2014 16:12:10 GMT
You are right, GSV, that that is how it was. I never wrote any code but I was managing the development of real-time telecommunications systems when our bits were stored on ferrite beads and 16k was an awful lot of expensive RAM memory. Software engineers were in control then of costs and timescales. The world has changed and ICT is just a bought-in resource. They do they best they can with what they are given in the time they are given, and much is done by contractors who move from job to job. If it works ok that is all that is wanted. I don't know where FC fits in the scheme of things, but I suspect that the staff would like to be able to do a better job than is possible. Of course they cannot post replies on this board.
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Post by davee39 on Nov 20, 2014 17:39:24 GMT
You are right, GSV, that that is how it was. I never wrote any code but I was managing the development of real-time telecommunications systems when our bits were stored on ferrite beads and 16k was an awful lot of expensive RAM memory. Software engineers were in control then of costs and timescales. The world has changed and ICT is just a bought-in resource. They do they best they can with what they are given in the time they are given, and much is done by contractors who move from job to job. If it works ok that is all that is wanted. I don't know where FC fits in the scheme of things, but I suspect that the staff would like to be able to do a better job than is possible. Of course they cannot post replies on this board. You are being far too generous to the IT staff. An infrequent glitch might occur even with a well run IT service, but the failure of almost every software release suggests there is something fundamentally wrong with the IT service. To be as bad as it is I assume that 1) FC has outsourced to the lowest bidder 2) The lowest bidder employs the lowest cost staff 3) The lowest cost staff , whether onshore or offshore will be recently graduated, with little real world experience or understanding of what the actual end-user expects 4) There is no effective code testing under a simulated live environment 5) FC does not appear to care
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Nov 20, 2014 17:49:11 GMT
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baz657
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Post by baz657 on Nov 20, 2014 18:12:37 GMT
It may be a coincidence but today was the day, this morning in fact, when I decided to make my first withdrawal from FC. I had just over £300 from sales on the AM and couldn't be bothered to look for new homes on FC for the money. Later I received an email asking me to call them as it was my first withdrawal - fair enough and very security conscious. What I didn't understand was why the lady on the other end of the phone seemed so concerned about the £300-odd. I've still got 7k there so didn't think much about it.
Until I read this thread.
Have they had a run of cash?
Edited to add...
Although I'm registered (and have been for months) and logged in on the FC forum, I can't reply to the topic shown above. Or any others. Maybe they're scared of the replies?
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Post by p2perrr on Nov 20, 2014 18:26:54 GMT
(I remember ICT Tabulators with Plug-boards ... sigh.) (I like to hope things are moving on.)
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Post by GSV3MIaC on Nov 20, 2014 18:43:03 GMT
Way back then you coded right because it was such a PITA to have to adjust it after (i.e. back when 'release' was mailing paper tapes to far flung universities). These days the .js is apparently so dynamic that my PC isn't even allowed to cache it for 10 seconds, and they can screw and unscrew the website for the whole world between making cups of coffee. Progress .. well yes, but not in the direction most of us would like. 8<.
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blender
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Post by blender on Nov 20, 2014 18:43:12 GMT
OK I give up trying to defend the indefensible. The development process and system performance is terrible, and personally if I was in any way involved and could not improve it I would be out.
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mikeb
Posts: 1,072
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Post by mikeb on Nov 20, 2014 18:44:40 GMT
Rapid reply from FC confirming this to be a feature of this mornings maintenance. It is time the entire Tech Team was replaced!!!!!!! Feature? That's not a feature, it's a bug, I tell you! One day this will be us .... www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30125728It must have been something to do with trapped bids from the preceding days frantic auction frenzy, because before the site went down, I had £20 less than I did once it finally came back up and stabilised. That's a lost bid coming home to roost.
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Post by GSV3MIaC on Nov 20, 2014 20:52:43 GMT
What .. '404 page not found' ? Yes, I guess that might well wind up being us. 8>.
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oldgrumpy
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Post by oldgrumpy on Nov 20, 2014 20:55:49 GMT
What .. '404 page not found' ? Yes, I guess that might well wind up being us. 8>. I thought this thread was about trapped bids not trapped wind!! 
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blender
Member of DD Central
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Post by blender on Nov 20, 2014 22:26:13 GMT
... I have not bid anything today, but for the last few days my account has not reconciled as it always has before. That is my capital (the net of deposits and withdrawals) does not equal my FC total less net earnings. It was OK before and after the change to exclude accrued interest from the total. So FC have mishandled one or more transactions to give an error around £25. I suspect this is a long-standing problem which has just hit me. I will give FC some time for their internal reconciliation processes to find and correct (joke). Surely it is unacceptable for a financial services regulated system to be knowingly left in this state for years without it being corrected? Forgive me quoting my own post but I now have found exactly what happened here, and it has to do with an encounter by mistake with the SM buying bots. I do not know if the error was caused by FC mishandling a race condition or the bots abusing the user interface. I think I will wait a while and see what happens. All has been archived.
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mikeb
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Post by mikeb on Nov 21, 2014 18:53:45 GMT
What .. '404 page not found' ? Yes, I guess that might well wind up being us. 8>. No, that's already us ... (Edited to fix URL cut and paste error, see what happens when you don't test things?)
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Post by GSV3MIaC on Nov 21, 2014 21:11:52 GMT
Hey, you too could get a job at FouledUp Coders, with skills like that!! 8>.
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spyrogyra
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Post by spyrogyra on Nov 21, 2014 22:11:38 GMT
Bids trapped again. I raised a formal complaint.
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Post by pepperpot on Nov 22, 2014 0:23:53 GMT
Bids trapped again. I raised a formal complaint. Really? My available has just gone up a few hundred as something got knocked out and my FC total looks normal, well, I'm still £60.19 up, which is where it's been for I don't know how long (barring thurs am). One of these days I'll get around to complaining about that!
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