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Admin
It's like when I get Nigerian scam emails. I just keep responding with 'OK'.
Drives them nuts.
Admin
I hope there are unique numbers on the other side of the labels.
Admin
We will be restoring normality as soon as we are sure what is normal anyway
Admin
An Apple for Eve, A button for Steve, It never ends. . .
Admin
"Press any key to continue and any other key to quit" is a joke error message I've seen long ago (some collection of email taglines, I think). So it's likely intentionally included as a joke in something that's an "internal tool".
Admin
The first one is from the M.C. Hammer edition of Lotus Notes -- Can't touch this!
Admin
I see that it's a wooden hotdesk...
Admin
I've had a few buttons like that. Usually labelled button1, generally left in by oversignt to test some higher level error handling code, so it just throws a bunch of errors.
It's almost worth keeping them in the application to get bug reports like "we keep clicking button1 and it always generates an error". Uh, ok, good to know. How many times did you click it before you established that again?
And then there was the "Ack" dialog accidently left in once as a debug point, and one impressive true/false/else pattern that actually fired the else condition (frequently) to show a dialog asking how they got there (technically impossible, never did figure out how they managed it, let alone managed it frequently).
"Now what have we learned about buttons labelled 'button1' ?"
Admin
Yes, like the error dialogue I submitted, but wasn't published, from NVidia Forte Manager, which simply announces, "??? 42". That can only be something that was meant to be internal.
Admin
Admin
Made me think of WTF:
http://xkcd.com/327/
[image]Admin
'Please do not press this button': Someone's been reading H2G2
Daz
Admin
At least there is the Close (x) button.
Admin
So where IS this Any Other Key?
Admin
Why bother to mention it's Lotus Notes? It's nothing to do with Lotus Notes - it is an application within Lotus Notes that someone has written badly.
Admin
Admin
At least there is the X on the top right, so the user does have options. -Adam
Admin
As if LN is a good piece of software anyway...
Admin
Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy?
Admin
Sheesh. Any key continues and every other key quits. Can't you count to two? :-)
Admin
Admin
I gotta know. What happens when you press that button?
Admin
Aside from any obvious H2G2 references (like the ??? 42), It reminded me of the button labeled [ DO NOT PUSH ] in Space Quest. It's been a while since I landed in the Middle Ages...
Admin
When you press that button, a sign lights up saying “Please do not press this button again”.
As for the third one, I suspect that the program is a GUI wrapper on some CLI tool. It simply scraped the error message and put it in a dialog box, without regard for the contents or the change of context.
CAPTCHA: alarm (sort of like Ford Prefect's reaction to Arthur moving to press an unknown button)
Admin
Admin
The cable labels gave me flashbacks. At my old position we had to label every cable to a ridiculous degree.
Ethernet data cables had to be a certain color and Ethernet management cables (DRACs, LOM) had to be a different color. So right off the bat we had to swap out 95% of the cables in our facility.
Every Ethernet cable had to be labeled on both ends with:
So you would end up with a cable "flag" that was about 6 inches long. It was obviously useful, in the case when someone sneaked into the server room and unplugged a random cable (which never happened). Of course if you ever moved anything or renamed a server for a new project you had to make 2 new labels.
The best part was labeling the power cords. You needed to have the server name and the "slot" the cord was plugged into on the surge suppressor. Then you had to label the end of the surge suppressor and which circuit breaker it plugged back into.
Admin
The cable entry made me think of this one:
http://worsethanfailure.com/Articles/Which-Cable.aspx
Admin
Ooh, those were the days...
Admin
I wonder if the first one is the History Eraser Button?
[image]Admin
Or it's one of those msg boxes you sometimes build to tease annoying users. We used to sometimes do that in small apps in Notes. Message boxes would pop up just to be even more annoying then the user. They would only appear for certain users . . . . Notes was fun that way. Too easy to do stuff like that just for fun. Now you need an act from god to make any changes to apps due to SOX. Not as much fun.
Admin
Admin
The fact that they are using Blotus Notes in the first place is half the WTF.
Admin
Oh, I'm sorry Leo, was that supposed to be a witty and succinct answer to my question?
....or were you spouting off about a system you know nothing about, so came out with the usual slagging off we've heard so often, without making any specific point?
(Do, by all means, find lots of faults in the somewhat-less-than-perfect interface in Release 4, as long as you acknowledge that Release 8 is the current version)
Admin
Now someone else makes my points for me.
They chose Lotus Notes.
Go on....Name a WTF...
Go on....One WTF....
...(remember that Release 8 is the current version, mind)....
......and all is silent in the empty desert of your replies, save for the barely-perceptible rustle of the rolling tumbleweed as it swirls away......
Admin
Admin
One place I worked had a some new cables installed, about 30 cables to the server. The installer did label each end with a number between 1 and 30. The only problem was that there was no relationship between the numbers at each end.
Admin
Admin
Exactamundo. Even the most hardcore /. Lotus Notes basher(TM) knows that you can make a messagebox tell whatever you want it to. Even in Lotus Notes.
Therefore, it's a pretty lame one.
Admin
SELECT * FROM MonsterTable
Admin
A hot wooden desk! Isn't that a bit of a fire hazard
Admin
Well, as people are so fond of saying, "the real WTF, here," is that someone on this thread is actually defending Notes, and rather aggressively, too.
Please, don't stop, it's hilarious. It's really cheered up my work colleagues and me, today :)
As (forced by company policy) Notes users, there's nothing we like more than a bit of good old Notes Bashing and this Notes Defending lark has put an interesting, and very funny, new spin on an old game.
I'm actually of the opinion that another name for a Lotus Notes Basher, would be "someone of sound mind, who's ever had the misfortune to use it"
Oh, and before you ask, no I'm not using version 8. Still stuck in the stone age with version 6.5, I'm afraid. After Spock's comments, though, I am under absolutely no doubt that, after a couple of years of turd polishing, all the "features" that make life so much fun with 6.5 have been removed, everything useful is exactly where you expect it to be and, therefore, easy to find, and users of version 8 spend their days marvelling about how rubbish Notes used to be. Unfortunately, we won't be seeing the organisational utopia that is version 8 until around 2010, so it will be a while before I can actually confirm that.
Let's face it, though, in all likelihood it's still pants.
Defending notes..... Awesome!
Admin
Aha something I can comment on....
Lotus Notes SW: Noteworthy for all the wrong reasons.
Why would you write applications and "databases" in a proprietry email application. You can then no longer upgrade your email client as there's too many dependencies on it.
You need a light email client that you can quickly upgrade to deal with security alerts.
Want to write an application... don't do it in notes Want to write a database... don't do it in notes Want an email client... fine but isn't it a bit expensive and heavyweight for that?
Admin
I'm yet to see a Notes application that doesn't suck. Absolutely all the Notes apps I've seen are clumsy, slow as hell. They are also almost impossible to maintain, and they all rot in about two years. Oh, and the mail client is just plain stupid
Admin
So "In all likelihood it's still pants". WTF? Is that some kind of argument. Go on, make my point for me again.
What specifically do you have against Lotus Notes?
(and don't forget the current version is Release 8 now, so anyone wanting to introduce the [justifiable] Interface Hall of Fame jokes are 4 (yes four) versions out.)
The three ancestor LN posts just beg the question. They just attack LN without introducing a single WTF they see in the product.
As a RAD platform, it needs fewer developers to produce quick working useful applications. So naturally I'm in a minority over the many Microsoft developers needed to to be hired to produce the same result.
I don't mind being in a minority - it's OK - because my customers get the last laugh.
Clustered Domino servers - last unscheduled outage affecting customers - can't remember one. Time to create and rollout a new customer workflow application with bomb-proof user security, and with off-line usability - under an hour.
....and the tumbleweed rolls across the desert sand....
Admin
The same result? Are you kidding me? The "same result" is much easier to maintain, it's MUCH faster, and the data is stored in a real database, you know, the kind of database that's easily acessible to other apps.
Admin
Spock is seriously funny.
I've never actually used Lotus Notes but I saw a screenshot once of version 2 and it looked really shite.
I'm much happier not using LN than if I had to use it.
CAPTCHA = kungfu (what I'd like to do to LN)
Admin
Because Lotus Notes is a WTF (in both the traditional meaning and the "Worse Than Failure" meaning) in itself. It's the best example of bad UI/bad functionality/bad code on the planet.
Admin
I think we've found the architect of Lotus Notes!
Seriously, you want a WTF? How about the fact that every other application on Windows uses F5 to refresh, but Notes uses F9 (F5 locks Notes). How about the horrendous UI? How about the multi-select that uses the stupid checkmarks in the margin instead of a highlight like other Windows apps? How about drag and drop that works only when it feels like it? How about the smart lookup that searches for email addresses as you type, but freezes for 10 minutes or more looking for something that's in your local address book? How about the fact that you get a notification that you have new mail and go to view it immediately, but Notes can't connect to the mail database for 5 minutes (even though it was already connected in order to tell you about the new mail)? How about the 4 minute startup time on a 3.4 GHz Pentium D with 2 GB RAM? And the close to the same 4 minute time to shut down? And the other thousand non-standard parts of the UI?
That enough of a short list of the "features" of Lotus Notes for you? (And remember that Release 8 is the current version, mind you. That means that they've had at least 7 chances to fix the piece of crap that started as Release 1, but have failed to do so at least 7 times.)
If you seriously think Notes is anything but a POS, you must be from another planet... Maybe the name "Spock" is appropriate after all.
Admin
I answered with a short list. If I gave you the full list, we'd be here weeks.
We're forced to use Release 7.0.2 here, but it hasn't improved over any of the previous versions. Release 8 must be a total rewrite - amazing they were able to do that huge a rewrite in only a couple of years!
Oh, that explains everything. Lotus Notes isn't intended to be an email client. It's the VB of email! So easy any moron can use it! Things are so much clearer now!
No, we do. We get the big laugh of you thinking you're a developer because you can write Notes Script. That's like the kiddie programmer who thinks he's kewl 'cause he knows a little VBScript. Whoopee!
If you're stupid enough to write stuff in Notes, I guess you'd be stupid enough to "create and rollout" an application of any sort in under an hour. You obviously aren't smart enough to understand that for anything non-trivial, testing is needed before it goes into production. But then you've proven your lack of intelligence already; you're defending the worst piece of software trash in the history of computers (and doing it publicly, no less).
Instead of quoting requiring a 'user=', in your case it should be 'luser="Spock"'. All that sand must be affecting your brain.
Admin
I have been working as a developer now for nearly 30 years and it was only when I started at my current employer that I realised I had led a very sheltered life.
With my new experience of notes here I now have two new Job Seeking maxims:
As an interveiwee: Q One: Do you use Lotus Notes here? A: Yes - Leave interview now! No Really! Now!!! A: No - continue with interview
As an interviewer: Q One: Have you ever been involved in Lotus Notes development or recommended Lotus Notes to any Customer of yours? A: Yes - eject interviewee forcibly from room. A: No - continue with interview