Developer cleverly shrank 2,600 lines of C into a six-line script but still ending up losing sleep

In the world of technology support, the burden of constant alerts can be overwhelming. To shed light on this issue, The Register's "On Call" column features real-life stories from readers facing sleepless nights due to their work. This week, we hear from "Tim," a former employee of a phone company, who cleverly transformed 2,650 lines of C code into a compact six-line shell script to solve a data transfer problem.

Tim's journey began when he was tasked with fixing a data transfer program that relied on a bespoke implementation of File Transfer Protocol (FTP). With the internet still in its infancy, Tim had to search for the required code using a Wide Area Information Server (WAIS) and read through the AT&T Unix source code, which wasn't publicly available due to licensing restrictions.

After eight hours of painstaking research, he managed to locate the necessary code and craft his script, which ran overnight to gather data from the telecommunications company's switches, process the information, and upload it to a mainframe.

The script proved effective, but unforeseen issues arose when it began triggering Tim's pager due to network failures. Despite attempting to rectify the issue for two weeks, Tim's manager eventually relented, requesting that Tim return the pager. However, his relief was short-lived, as the pager continued to go off incessantly, night after night, leaving Tim in a state of perpetual sleep deprivation.

In the face of such adversity, how many consecutive sleepless nights have you endured while on call? If you have stories to share, submit your account to The Register's On Call column, and your tale may be featured in an upcoming Friday installment.