• (cs)

    Been there, done that, felt the pain. Except in my case it was due to a remote guy who did try to set up all the paths in the XML configuration file, but thought MS Word was an appropriate way to do it...

  • Steve the Cynic (unregistered)

    Culprit: whoever wrote the doc:

    "Paste in exactly what is below" should not refer to text that contains "meta content" such as "the path you entered before". If it does, eventually this will happen, because some people are way too literal-minded

    Of course, the other problem is allowing people the option of choosing the layout of the system. The page in every installer that directs me to choose the installation directory might as well, for most folks, direct them to fleen the ogglefloggle. At the very most, it should be visible only for "custom" installs, or if possible, only the "I'm a pinhead who wants a misconfigured system" option.

    And the minimal/default/etc. choice should be a choice between "fill up your computer" and "be slow as mud".

  • (cs)

    We're not ready to see you yet 85 ways to die

  • Beta (unregistered)

    "Paste in exactly what is below" should not refer to text that contains "meta content" such as "the path you entered before".

    I agree.

    If it does, eventually this will happen, because some people are way too literal-minded. Or too interested in staying employed. In some environments a smart coder can forsee a conversation with a tech-illiterate boss after the build fails: "Did you follow the instructions exactly?" "Well, no, not exactly..."

  • (cs)

    BBCode Okay

  • Right Wing-Nut (unregistered)

    I've had nothing but pain (great pain, that is) from offshore teams in India. This kind of brain-dead "I do EXACTLY what it says, no need to think if it's sane" behavior is only one of the many things that make up to NROI that these groups provide.

    If I'm going to work with Ameia Bedilia, she better make good pies!

  • smirnoff (unregistered)

    Please recreate this comment precisely as listed below

    CAPTCHA: aptent - misspelled patent

  • 50% Opacity (unregistered)

    trWTF is an 80+ step "install" procedure. Sounds more like a Rube Goldberg machine than an application. Come on, add at least some packaging, otherwise you're just shifting the work from "do the job" to "try to set up a machine to do the job".

  • Bob (unregistered)

    And this is exactly why offshoring is a bad idea. Many offshore developers and testers are excellent at their jobs and hard working too, but the linguistic and cultural differences often lead to situations like this. It's not a defect because of assumptions being made, it's a defect because one culture says "common sense suggests that the person reading this will do the <right> thing" and the other says "do exactly as you were told". The cost of this kind of inter-cultural exchange is entirely hidden and utterly massive.

  • (cs)

    I thought that using humans to follow a procedure is supposed to eliminate this kind of braindead fuckups. Sorry, but if it says "set VARIABLE=path to something (example)", they SHOULD figure out what's going on.

  • Matt Westwood (unregistered) in reply to Right Wing-Nut
    Right Wing-Nut:
    I've had nothing but pain (great pain, that is) from offshore teams in India. This kind of brain-dead "I do EXACTLY what it says, no need to think if it's sane" behavior is only one of the many things that make up to NROI that these groups provide.

    If I'm going to work with Ameia Bedilia, she better make good pies!

    That's Amelia Bedelia. Thought I was the only person in the world to have heard of her.

    We have regular arguments as to exactly how explicit we need to make our instructions. The slightest ambiguity is anathema. The bottom line is: if your instructions are too complicated to follow, you need a wizard.

  • SR (unregistered) in reply to Spork
    Spork:
    BBCode Okay

    [applauds]

    You win internets (but no job in Hyderabad Inc)

  • Max (unregistered)

    So the WTF is that there were 85 steps, right? Because anyone with any outsourcing experience knows that they do EXACTLY what you tell them.

  • (cs)

    As noted by others, this is not nearly as much a failing of the offshore testers as it is a failing of the crap installation procedure. It is ridiculous to say an 85-step manual installation (including editing files) is "not too difficult". While each step may not be difficult, expecting all steps to be completed with repeatable results is asinine. The location of these testers (engineers, if you will) is irrelevant.

  • ohm (unregistered)

    i have tested together with some indians. while they are very disciplined and work hard, there are those cultural differences.

    indian testers are like working with a cli: they do exactly like you said, so you need to have your testplan finished in detail

    western testers are like google i feel lucky: they try to figure out what it is you want to do and then choose for you

  • Nibh (unregistered) in reply to Julia

    There is no excuse for an 85 step setup process. None. You are begging for problems like this, even with smart and competent people on the other end.

  • gus (unregistered)

    Not long ago I sent an e-mail to a PhD, something like this:

    Hi Grace, Hope things are fine at your new place at the big U.

    Your new password to login back to your files here is "the first name of your Indian TA" followed by "your old office number".

    She wrote back:

    I can't log in. Could you change the password to something shorter than 8 words?

  • (cs)

    The REAL WTF is that they couldn't be bothered to create a proper installer that performs these kinds of braindead tasks for you automatically, or at least ASKS for information where absolutely necessary.

  • (cs)

    I always use the format for these steps like the following:

    Variable=<ThisVariable> -Where <ThisVariable> is the result from step X

    I find that it prevents confusion as to what needs replaced and what it should be replaced with.

  • Andrew (unregistered)

    Another WTF - why didn't the startup process check whether the specified path was valid and give a helpful error message when it wasn't?

  • Hatterson (unregistered) in reply to gus
    gus:
    Not long ago I sent an e-mail to a PhD, something like this:

    Hi Grace, Hope things are fine at your new place at the big U.

    Your new password to login back to your files here is "the first name of your Indian TA" followed by "your old office number".

    She wrote back:

    I can't log in. Could you change the password to something shorter than 8 words?

    That's an understandable mistake considering you put those two phrases in quotes. Granted I could easily figure out what the password should be, but I'm used to reading things like that, Grace obviously isn't.

    Regarding the story: Not much of a WTF. The first install was likely handled by the most junior member of their team who followed the instructions as literally as he could because he didn't want to get blamed for messing something up. After it failed the rest of the team ensured that they ran the steps exactly as written because they wanted to ensure the issue wasn't on their end.

    I actually blame the person who wrote "precisely as listed below" when that is clearly not what should have been done.

  • Anonymous Coward (unregistered)

    Wow that was a long read for such a common WTF. And yeah, install scripts are good.

  • Anonymous (unregistered)

    Yep, been through this pain before. Forget common sense, forget logic, forget that these people are even human because honestly, I doubt they are. They are robots sent to try us with their preposterously literal intepretation of everything we say.

    A lot of people will defend the drones for just "following orders" but the whole situation reminds me of that Twilight Zone episode where a guy meets a genie and gets a bunch of wishes, but everything he wishes for comes true in a literal sense and completely screws him over. I always remember thinking "the wishes are sound, it's just that the genie is a COMPLETE ASSHOLE". Same goes for offshore developers. They're not "following orders", they are just complete assholes.

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to 50% Opacity
    50% Opacity:
    trWTF is an 80+ step "install" procedure. Sounds more like a Rube Goldberg machine than an application. Come on, add at least some packaging, otherwise you're just shifting the work from "do the job" to "try to set up a machine to do the job".
    I work in aerospace and this is perfectly common for a lot of the software packages we work with. I'm not defending it, it pisses me off, but it is common.
  • MaR (unregistered)

    Those instructions were just plain wrong and 85 steps installation is atrocity against humanity. Actually sheer number of steps just amplify the problem - if the only step was the 32 then probably they would figure out themselves... But nice WTF what can go wrong if you try to outsource (I'll be guessing here) big ball of mud.

  • Anonomyous (unregistered) in reply to apaq11

    "I always use the format for these steps like the following:

    Variable=<ThisVariable> -Where <ThisVariable> is the result from step X

    I find that it prevents confusion as to what needs replaced and what it should be replaced with."

    And how surprised would you be when the team mentioned here went ahead and wrote just that?

    "Variable=the result from step X"

  • Anon (unregistered)

    Just to agree with several other people, TRWTF is the install procedure. This is just the kind of task scripting was invented for.

  • jdw (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    Yep, been through this pain before. Forget common sense, forget logic, forget that these people are even human because honestly, I doubt they are. They are robots sent to try us with their preposterously literal intepretation of everything we say.

    A lot of people will defend the drones for just "following orders" but the whole situation reminds me of that Twilight Zone episode where a guy meets a genie and gets a bunch of wishes, but everything he wishes for comes true in a literal sense and completely screws him over. I always remember thinking "the wishes are sound, it's just that the genie is a COMPLETE ASSHOLE". Same goes for offshore developers. They're not "following orders", they are just complete assholes.

    And this is why technical writers exist.

    If you don't write precisely what you mean, you have no right to complain that people following your instructions can't seem to get it right. Sure, there's common sense, and after the first failure, I might be a bit more careful about the install procedure, but when someone says "do exactly this" and doing exactly that doesn't work, it's not the fault of the person following the instructions.

  • (cs)

    85 steps, and you're going to have an offshore team do this, and you can't throw together a script? There's the problem.

  • zomgdude (unregistered)

    Serves him right for having a system with 85 steps to install. What kind of person works on something like that? Everything should be one step install. I'm not buying the "our stuff is complicated" line either. That's bull.

  • Quirkafleeg (unregistered)

    I'm presently too busy staying on the path and watching for snakes to comment on this.

  • Not A Duhveloper (unregistered)

    Try installing SAP or Peoplesoft or Oracle Financials with only 85 steps. You won't even be 1% in.

    Interview for Oracle Financials position:

    Candidate: "Then I applied over 1000 patches" Me: "When did you apply the rest of them?"

  • Anonymous (unregistered)

    As soon as I saw the word "offshore" I should have known the WTF would be about the offshore team taking something too literally. Of course that WTF could have been prevented by:

    a) A more clear install process b) An in-house testing team

    And bonus WTF...developers writing tests instead of testers writing tests? WTF?

  • 3rd Ferguson (unregistered)

    There's plenty of WTF to go around, but TRWTF here is hiring people specifically to be stupid and do "drudge work" and then expecting common sense.

    Common sense costs extra.

  • Ken (unregistered)

    TRWTF is the install procedures. I think I'd turn into a mindless cut-n-paste zombie by step 40 or so too.

  • That Guy (unregistered)

    My company uses offshore developers to work on the GUI interface, so I have to correct a lot of things like:

    status = createSimulatedMediaError(drive); if (status == SUCCESS) logMessage("Successfully created media error on drive."); else logMessage("Successfully not able to create media error on drive.");

  • Wodin (unregistered) in reply to Ken

    Turning into a cut'n'paste zombie at step 40 is fine. It was step 32 that they got wrong.

  • JT (unregistered)

    Although the 85 steps are bit much, you would think that a tester would look at the text he is copying (at least to make sure he copied the complete line) and would notice that it wouldn't work as typed.

  • (cs)

    Reminds me of this article:

    http://regretfulmorning.com/2009/03/8-confessions-of-a-star-wars-galaxies-csr/

    Especially #6...

  • Harrow (unregistered) in reply to Andrew
    Andrew:
    Another WTF - why didn't the startup process check whether the specified path was valid and give a helpful error message when it wasn't?
    That is precisely the goal of the third phase of putting the offshore company's "world-class" engineering skills to use -- writing the new improved enterprise-level installation procedure. The U.S. team's job during this phase will be to define the process for designing the methodology to be used to guide the writing of the installation procedure functional specification. This will leave Julien plenty of time to fleen the ogglefloggle.

    -Harrow.

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to 3rd Ferguson
    3rd Ferguson:
    There's plenty of WTF to go around, but TRWTF here is hiring people specifically to be stupid and do "drudge work" and then expecting common sense.

    Common sense costs extra.

    You've just summed up the entire problem in two succinct sentences. I'm going to print this out, frame it and hang it on the wall next to my boss's office. This will become my stock response whenever anyone suggests outsourcing. Thank you, kind sir.

    ^ Mods, +1 vote for bluing up 3rd Ferguson's comment! ^

  • Bgglw (unregistered) in reply to frits

    Megadeth reference? How come 85 ways to die..?

  • (cs)

    Monkey see - monkey do.

  • Bgglw (unregistered) in reply to Bgglw

    Duh. Now i get it..

  • (cs)

    TRWTF: no setup log.

  • IT Girl (unregistered) in reply to Anonomyous
    Anonomyous:
    "I always use the format for these steps like the following:

    Variable=<ThisVariable> -Where <ThisVariable> is the result from step X

    I find that it prevents confusion as to what needs replaced and what it should be replaced with."

    And how surprised would you be when the team mentioned here went ahead and wrote just that?

    "Variable=the result from step X"

    I spent too many years writing training manuals for end users to see a WTF on any one's part but the developer.

    If you have 85 steps, you have time to write out a clear explanation of your manual's format.

    Mine always started with things like: Anything written between <> refers to a specific key. So, for example, <Enter> means press the key that says Enter as opposed to typing the word Enter.

    If you "assume" that they understand <ThisVariable> refers to a placeholder for something more specific, you're going to run into the same thing that always happens when people assume. You're speaking programmer, they're speaking $2/hour.

  • (cs)

    As someone who has had to write long multi-step install instructions, I would be royally pissed if I found out somebody was substituting their own "best guess" for what I wrote. If I wrote "set PATH_TO_TST_ENV=Path to the test environment (absolute, such as C:\TestEnv)" then by God, that had better be exactly what is in the finished file, especially with a header explicitly instructing that.

    I have often told recipients of my instructions "I will never be mad (except at myself) if you do exactly, literally what I tell you and it fails." Julien is the one getting paid to do the thinking, not the testers.

    The error is the more inexcusable since we're talking about a from-scratch install, so Julien can easily dictate that they create a directory with a specific name and use that -- no need for variable parsing.

  • (cs)

    Ah the lovely Indian mindset of never thinking outside the box, but doing exactly what is written even when any modicum of common sense would say otherwise.

  • (cs) in reply to Not A Duhveloper
    Not A Duhveloper:
    Try installing SAP or Peoplesoft or Oracle Financials with only 85 steps. You won't even be 1% in.

    Interview for Oracle Financials position:

    Candidate: "Then I applied over 1000 patches" Me: "When did you apply the rest of them?"

    Bah. SAP. Ahhh! Freaky install process...from purchase to running, several months...the horror.

  • AT (unregistered) in reply to gus
    gus:
    Not long ago I sent an e-mail to a PhD, something like this:

    Hi Grace, Hope things are fine at your new place at the big U.

    Your new password to login back to your files here is "the first name of your Indian TA" followed by "your old office number".

    She wrote back:

    I can't log in. Could you change the password to something shorter than 8 words?

    A PhD in what? Feminist studies? Elementary education? Certainly not in any meaningful discipline!

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