Today will be the suck.
How do I know this? Because I'm doing something innately stupid and time-consuming. Bossman found us a client. Of course, he gave impossible deadlines for little money. Go boss… The project isn't all that hard. We need to port a commercial website written in ASP running in IIS and based on MS SQL Server to one written in Java/JSP in Apache/Tomcat based on mySQL. For those of you who aren't that tech-savvy, it's no big deal to do.
Except that, bossman being well… a boob, he told the guys we'd be willing to host their servers at our office. The only windows machine we had was a coworker's desktop – really not the best place to host a production website! So we buy a new windows box, and I've been assigned to install all the crap that needs to run on it. Now bear in mind that I've never worked with IIS/SQL Server, but I figure I'm smart enough to muddle through the basics.
So after walkies yesterday with Josie and MJ, I get back to the office, roll up my shirtsleeves and have at it. Install XP, no worries. SQL Server, no problem. IIS, simple. Migrate the old website to the new box, fairly straightforward. Try to migrate the database from the old machine to the new one? All hell breaks loose.
Seriously.
My coworker and I – whose cumulative experience with SQL Server is roughly 6 hours in total – encounter the most frustratingly weird set of problems we've ever come across. Things that should work… don't. Things that work one way don't work in another. And to make matters worse, in our tinkering to try and get the new server to work, we killed the old one. You could beat us to death with a stick and we wouldn't be able to tell you what we did wrong. Which, considering WE'VE NEVER WORKED WITH THOSE TECHNOLOGIES, is quite normal.
And, of course, the only two people who have worked with them are not in the office and probably won't be until monday. *throws hands up in the air*
So today, I am starting the whole process from scratch, and hopefully I will get the damn thing to work. Honestly, I don't really care if I do. That's a problem…