Ambiguous error messages...
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Part of the problem is that users can't read. Their eyeballs just slide off the glass. Even at places I've worked that had separate QA departments we'd get back (literally!) "I was doing something and it crashed". "What about the error message we displayed?" "I don't remember what it said." "It had a number before the message, did you at least write that down?" "No, I didn't understand it." So why bother? Now what really annoys me are misleading development error messages. Oracle used to drive me batty with "Bad END statement." The real problem was "Label not found.", but I guess it found the END statement before finding the label it was looking for and therefore that was the problem. I used to write better parsers in high school. The core DB engine may have been written by the A Team, but I always thought the user interface was written by the F Troop. Don't get me started on Microsoft error messages...
Psychosis at 10 Film at 11
What gets me is any error message with an exclamation mark at the end. "Date format is invalid!", "An unknown error has occurred!". Whenever I get one I automatically imagine the words "you idiot" added to the end. An equally annoying variant is a success message with an exclamation mark: e.g. testing an ODBC data sources gives "TESTS COMPLETED SUCCESSFULLY!" - what, so that's such a big surprise that you have to shout at me?
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...don't you just love them? They add challenges to your life.
Steve Jowett ------------------------- Real Programmers don't need comments -- the code is obvious.
How about this one here : Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.Xna.Framework, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=6d5c3888ef60e27d' or one of its dependencies. An attempt was made to load a program with an incorrect format. What is a program with an incorrect format? Especially if you just compiled it? Took me a while to find out since the error did not happen on my machine.
A while ago he asked me what he should have printed on my business cards. I said 'Wizard'. I read books which nobody else understand. Then I do something which nobody understands. After that the computer does something which nobody understands. When asked, I say things about the results which nobody understand. But everybody expects miracles from me on a regular basis. Looks to me like the classical definition of a wizard.
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...don't you just love them? They add challenges to your life.
Steve Jowett ------------------------- Real Programmers don't need comments -- the code is obvious.
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If its a computer virus then please make sure the manufacturer is not Microsoft, else we will be having buggy zombies everywhere.
WJFK (Write Just for Kicks)
The Digital Worm wrote:
buggy zombies everywhere
Now that's worthy of a movie :D Imagine the fun you could have with that as a writer. Zombies crashing left and right, sometimes spectacularly ("foom!"). Script kiddies writing all sorts of malware to control them to do crazy things (who wants to see 'em dance like an egyptian?). And of course, don't forget the sinister zombienets (Get your very own 1000 strong , er 999 strong zombie army today!).
patbob
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If its a computer virus then please make sure the manufacturer is not Microsoft, else we will be having buggy zombies everywhere.
WJFK (Write Just for Kicks)
not apple either... otherwise we'll need iTunes, Mac to even get started!
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...don't you just love them? They add challenges to your life.
Steve Jowett ------------------------- Real Programmers don't need comments -- the code is obvious.
The "sad Mac" X| 0x00000002 - from Mac Classic, where only Apple technicians had the reference book with the codes. I also hated the completely blank error window (at least I think it was an error window, since even the title was blank) in some apps. :doh:
I need an app that will automatically deliver a new BBBBBBBBaBB (beautiful blonde bimbo brandishing bountiful bobbing bare breasts and bodacious butt) every day. John Simmons / outlaw programmer
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The "sad Mac" X| 0x00000002 - from Mac Classic, where only Apple technicians had the reference book with the codes. I also hated the completely blank error window (at least I think it was an error window, since even the title was blank) in some apps. :doh:
I need an app that will automatically deliver a new BBBBBBBBaBB (beautiful blonde bimbo brandishing bountiful bobbing bare breasts and bodacious butt) every day. John Simmons / outlaw programmer
Boy does that bring back bad memories! I was given a PowerMac 6100 many years ago. It had 7.5 on it which was terrible. I especially hated the bomb message. I must have rebuilt that system a dozen times. My next machine was a Win98 which by comparison was awesome, though it had it's share of stupid error messages.
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Microsoft early IDEs used to crack me up: "An unknown error has occurred" - if it's that unknown, how do you know it's an error? No, please, don't crash out and trash all my work. Oh, you did.:mad:
Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together.
I understand that. You first have catch blocks for known exception types, and then one last catch block, or global exception handler, for those that are not known.
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I understand that. You first have catch blocks for known exception types, and then one last catch block, or global exception handler, for those that are not known.
This was from the days well before exceptions - C, not even C++ if you were lucky. Assembler if you weren't. You had two choices - check for problems that what you are about to do might cause cause before you tried it, or just say "F that" and do it anyway - it might not fall over too badly. MS (and to be fair a lot of companies) did the later more often than the former.
Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together.
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I love the ones you get in IE such as... "Windows cannot display the web page" You go to the diagnostics button and it basically tells you to contact your system administrator... :(
Steve Naidamast Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@ix.netcom.com
Steve Naidamast wrote:
You go to the diagnostics button and it basically tells you to contact your system administrator...
It gets even more fun when you are your own system admin :P
"Silently laughing at silly people is much more satisfying in the long run than rolling around with them in a dusty street, trying to knock out all their teeth. If nothing else, it's better on the clothes." - Belgarath (David Eddings)
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My favorite that I've seen recently is "The operation completed successfully." Apparently Windows now considers this an "exception".
My favourite message (that wasn't an error) came from a Microsoft Game: MTM (Monster Truck Madness). When I was updating the game via my dial-up connection, 10 or so years ago, it was keeping track of the update in a fashion like: "Downloading update... 14378 KB of 400 KB completed." Oh, Microsoft, how wonderful 'tis to see thy glorious programming talent!
"Silently laughing at silly people is much more satisfying in the long run than rolling around with them in a dusty street, trying to knock out all their teeth. If nothing else, it's better on the clothes." - Belgarath (David Eddings)
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...don't you just love them? They add challenges to your life.
Steve Jowett ------------------------- Real Programmers don't need comments -- the code is obvious.
What about "A catastropic failure has occured?" - Gaston
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Figmo2 wrote:
"Keyboard error. Press any key to continue..."
and to compound the problem, you discover your keyboard doesn't have an 'ANY' key. :doh:
Steve Jowett ------------------------- Real Programmers don't need comments -- the code is obvious.
