• (cs)

    Maybe he needing later?

  • (cs) in reply to Matt Westwood
    Matt Westwood:
    A colleague once proposed the idea that for every significant and well-understood error condition, we would get the app to display a particular picture on the screen, possibly with a timestamp appended. Then the support call would go like this:

    "I was working away, and suddenly I got this picture of a field of corn."

    "Aha - that means the format of the report file is dodgy. Send me the blahblahblah ..."

    We could never get management buyin, so had to continue with the hit-and-miss technique of expecting the users to be intelligent and computer-aware.

    If I were you, I'd set up a company and patent that idea, not give it away free on forums. Sure, it sounds amusing, but it would actually work rather well, I think.

  • oheso (unregistered) in reply to frits
    frits:
    Lyin', instantiatin', overloadin' that's all you seem to do. Messin' around every function in town...

    C'MON EVERYBODY!

    Your time is gonna come.

    Applause ...

  • shanghai coder (unregistered)

    We chinese love how you american jerks have such security gadgets all over your websites. Glad we have firewall and good coders.

  • Boolean Choice (unregistered) in reply to boog
    boog:
    aepryus:
    I really don't understand the WTF. Obviously, posting the same method every where is a WTF, but the method itself appears to be just boot strapping a configuration file.
    I'm wondering if the problem is anything like this. Since the failing jobs just hang, with nothing in the logs.

    This line in particular might be relevant:

    Alex Papadimoulis:
    ...modal dialogs aren't a very good way to convey error messages.

    The WTF is that the message box shows 'OK' and 'Cancel' buttons, but does the same thing regardless of which one you click...

  • Stephen Cleary (unregistered) in reply to Dazed
    Dazed:
    I've seen it happen with a manager as well. He was really screwing our project around, constantly changing his instructions and never writing anything down. One day when a particularly frustrated colleague told him that if he wrote nothing down he was no good at his job, he arrogantly replied "on the contrary, if I write nothing down it makes me irreplaceable". But he made the mistake of saying it where four or five project members could hear. I encouraged them to escalate it up the line, and the manager was gone two weeks later.

    I always email "confirmations" of anything that isn't written down. I just write up any "unofficial feature requests" before I start working on them, with a Cc or Bcc as necessary. And then I keep a copy on my local machine. Forever.

    However, even this doesn't prevent all situations. Just last week I had no fewer than 5 feature changes requested (one of which required a change to the database schema) the morning the clients arrived to pick it up! That was a bad day.

  • MrBob (unregistered) in reply to frits

    XD == eXtreme Development?

  • (cs) in reply to MrBob
    MrBob:
    XD == eXtreme Development?
    New-fangled lol.
  • observer (unregistered)

    I am eagerly awaiting Gary's response to all this =)

  • Steve Parker (unregistered)

    Ah. So TRWTF is a Windowed Operating System.

    Tying the GUI to ...well, anything other than a GUI is retarted.

  • Steve Parker (unregistered) in reply to intertravel

    I've got a field of corn, you've got maize, she's got a field of grass.

    That's still pretty vague, to cover a single error code.

    I'm no huge fan of Oracle in general, but if I run "oerr ora 01858" I get something like this:

    01858, 00000, "a non-numeric character was found where a numeric was expected" // *Cause: The input data to be converted using a date format model was incorrect. The input data did not contain a number where a number was required by the format model. *Action: Fix the input data or the date format model to make sure the elements match in number and type. Then retry the operation.

    You'll need to come up with a lot of very specific pictures to convey this level of detail...

  • anon (unregistered)

    So this is really ugly yeah, WTF, but what was the 'thinking'?

    A: I am GOD and nothing happens without me. B: I know some nifty script tricks. and Microsoft Message Compiler is the Kooooooolest! (mc.exe) C: So, I'll keep the server maintainence scripts on my workstation. D: I'll compile their LAN address, my admin username,pw,etc into binary resource files (for security!) and integrate them into the source code. E: responsible Admins must check error condtions, right? So I'll just pop up a MsgBox if its not found. F: Oh wait! I'll have it recreate it on the-fly! With Just one Click -- WOW! Cool! I'm Brillant! G: What would they do without my brillance? I am In-De-spencible!

    H: What!

  • (cs) in reply to Steve Parker
    Steve Parker:
    I'm no huge fan of Oracle in general, but if I run "oerr ora 01858" I get something like this:

    01858, 00000, "a non-numeric character was found where a numeric was expected" // *Cause: The input data to be converted using a date format model was incorrect. The input data did not contain a number where a number was required by the format model. *Action: Fix the input data or the date format model to make sure the elements match in number and type. Then retry the operation.

    You missed the part where you search the web for an hour or so and eventually find that this error can also be triggered in certain circumstances which have nothing at all to do with the official cause. At least, that happens to me in about one in every three Oracle errors I have to investigate.

  • Sudo (unregistered) in reply to intertravel
    intertravel:
    Matt Westwood:
    A colleague once proposed the idea that for every significant and well-understood error condition, we would get the app to display a particular picture on the screen, possibly with a timestamp appended. Then the support call would go like this:

    "I was working away, and suddenly I got this picture of a field of corn."

    "Aha - that means the format of the report file is dodgy. Send me the blahblahblah ..."

    We could never get management buyin, so had to continue with the hit-and-miss technique of expecting the users to be intelligent and computer-aware.

    If I were you, I'd set up a company and patent that idea, not give it away free on forums. Sure, it sounds amusing, but it would actually work rather well, I think.

    Agreed. That's actually a pretty clever idea. Except for blind users perhaps...

    There's also a risk that some users might mistake the error messages for screensavers or wallpapers. Worse still, they might think the pictures are "cool" - and they might start purposely creating errors, so they can show their friends what their awesome computer can do...

  • MyName (unregistered) in reply to aepryus

    It creates a message box that need human intervention when there is no file.

  • Andy (unregistered) in reply to boog

    He deleted the files when he got fired, nobody to click ok to re-create the file!

  • kevin (unregistered)

    I'm commenting on a story months after it's been posted when no one will ever see it. That means I'm Busy and Important. People Know Me.

    ...

    um...poop! heehehehhehehehe! POOP!!111!!1!

    Maybe commenting should be disabled after (x) many days?

    (note to self: insert kewl joke about captcha here; people will think I'm smart)

  • Axel (unregistered) in reply to kevin

    I saw that, Kevin!

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