Crontarded (sigh)

Note to self: sometimes mistakes are painful. Sometimes they are funny. Sometimes they are both, and sometimes they are painful, but funny in retrospect. In any case, the best approach is to document it, so that it _never_happens_again. Here is an email I sent earlier today:

Subject: HI! I'm an idiot!

Hey Adam, you know when you came up to me and told me db-import was getting pegged every 6 hours? And Gil, you know when you were asking me one day around noon why you were handling requests every 1 minute?

well, in the crontab I was running a job like this:

* */6 * * *
which is really a great way of saying: every 6 hours, run this task every 1 minute. You see, I knew that, I just didn't _know_ that.

I've amended the offending crontab entry to :

00 */6 * * *

so that the job can run once and only once, every 6 hours, like God intended.

So, I'm sorry. You both can join the long list of people that (a) should punch me or (b) should get a free beer from me. The way I'm f*cking up today, that line will shortly be stretching around the block.

-- Arun

Those of you keeping score at home will know that the score now reads:
Compilers and OS's (not including windoze): 12,000
Arun: 0