Sometimes It Pays To Cover All Bases
-
I had a message "What part of 'failed' don't you understand?" as a default in something... until a new boss came along and didn't like.
The boss was right - sarcasm in error messages is rarely helpful (thus contrary to their purpose) and suggests arrogance on the author's part, so is best avoided.
-
From Reader's Digest of about 50 years ago. (Much before Google) Somebody visited West Germany for the first time, and saw signboards of 'Ausfahrt' at many places, and was initially of the idea that Ausfahrt is huge city, to which all these roads lead. However no place called Ausfahrt was found on the map. Only later did he find out that Ausfahrt means Exit.
To be fair, which is exactly where all those signs led!😉
-
From Reader's Digest of about 50 years ago. (Much before Google) Somebody visited West Germany for the first time, and saw signboards of 'Ausfahrt' at many places, and was initially of the idea that Ausfahrt is huge city, to which all these roads lead. However no place called Ausfahrt was found on the map. Only later did he find out that Ausfahrt means Exit.
To be fair, which is exactly where all those signs led!😉
-
Hi All, Have been writing a front end for a piece of test equipment we designed in house to test a product which is a subassembly of another bigger (>£ or $). The subassembly is a questionable design but...I was told when writing the software these are the limits. Of course they change on a per-hour basis as the designers have copied some elses home work and don't really understand the issues so that get shoved in an ini file that can be edited via notepad. Too higher readings covered, too low readings covered & pass covered, ask the question whatelse does the unit output, 'nothing' add a catch for anything else. Basically a message box that says "Somethings Wrong, Check Part" someone who knows better looks over my code and says "Well, thats options a waste of time, but you have deployed it now, you will have to roll that mod back the next update we do!", Yesterday morning one of the operators reported a rig failure with a "message you haven't shown us" mass hysteria, morning meeting derailed, Senior leadership all tramp down to see issue. The message box on the screen is
Quote:
Somethings Wrong, Check Part
:wtf: I then have to explain infront of every one the rig has seen an error I have told not to check for & was told to remove as it was point less. You close the port and reopen the port and the issue is solved. "Why wasn't the operator told what to do with this error", my reply "Well I was told the error couldn't happen", think I was for it got told I had done the correct thing, "I'll have a word" waiting for the outcome now :)
I'm reminded of the work we did for SEPTA (South Eastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority). We did the computer aided dispatch system which had to communicate to the trains via packet radio. When they showed us the protocol they wanted to use I just about died. No error check, no ACK/NAK. Asked them how we were supposed to test the protocol they said they were going to use a VT100 terminal to type in the messages. I proposed a better protocol and told them we would design an emulator so we could emulate the entire train system. Then there was one big bugaboo....they had to be able to connect dispatch to all the train's audio systems for emergency announcements and such. I told them they needed a broadcast message and they said "no". I also explained to them that with the ACK/NAK protocol and single train connections it would take up to 30 minutes to get all the trains connected and another 30 minutes to disconnect them (all during which the live dispatch radio system is connected to train speakers). I put this in writing to them. They said "we aren't going to fix it". Around 3 years after we delivered the system they called us and blamed us for the 30 minute delay. I had to haul out the letters between us to show them we warned them.
-
Hi All, Have been writing a front end for a piece of test equipment we designed in house to test a product which is a subassembly of another bigger (>£ or $). The subassembly is a questionable design but...I was told when writing the software these are the limits. Of course they change on a per-hour basis as the designers have copied some elses home work and don't really understand the issues so that get shoved in an ini file that can be edited via notepad. Too higher readings covered, too low readings covered & pass covered, ask the question whatelse does the unit output, 'nothing' add a catch for anything else. Basically a message box that says "Somethings Wrong, Check Part" someone who knows better looks over my code and says "Well, thats options a waste of time, but you have deployed it now, you will have to roll that mod back the next update we do!", Yesterday morning one of the operators reported a rig failure with a "message you haven't shown us" mass hysteria, morning meeting derailed, Senior leadership all tramp down to see issue. The message box on the screen is
Quote:
Somethings Wrong, Check Part
:wtf: I then have to explain infront of every one the rig has seen an error I have told not to check for & was told to remove as it was point less. You close the port and reopen the port and the issue is solved. "Why wasn't the operator told what to do with this error", my reply "Well I was told the error couldn't happen", think I was for it got told I had done the correct thing, "I'll have a word" waiting for the outcome now :)
I found this very hard to read.
-
Hi All, Have been writing a front end for a piece of test equipment we designed in house to test a product which is a subassembly of another bigger (>£ or $). The subassembly is a questionable design but...I was told when writing the software these are the limits. Of course they change on a per-hour basis as the designers have copied some elses home work and don't really understand the issues so that get shoved in an ini file that can be edited via notepad. Too higher readings covered, too low readings covered & pass covered, ask the question whatelse does the unit output, 'nothing' add a catch for anything else. Basically a message box that says "Somethings Wrong, Check Part" someone who knows better looks over my code and says "Well, thats options a waste of time, but you have deployed it now, you will have to roll that mod back the next update we do!", Yesterday morning one of the operators reported a rig failure with a "message you haven't shown us" mass hysteria, morning meeting derailed, Senior leadership all tramp down to see issue. The message box on the screen is
Quote:
Somethings Wrong, Check Part
:wtf: I then have to explain infront of every one the rig has seen an error I have told not to check for & was told to remove as it was point less. You close the port and reopen the port and the issue is solved. "Why wasn't the operator told what to do with this error", my reply "Well I was told the error couldn't happen", think I was for it got told I had done the correct thing, "I'll have a word" waiting for the outcome now :)
Not to worry... Even AI is getting fed up with stupid Humans. In one incident, a user asked the AI a question and the response was, "Figure it out yourself..."
Steve Naidamast Sr. Software Engineer Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com
-
I did some programming for a German Engineering Company. I quickly learned that clarity of error messages counted alot and for good reason as many of the users were not engineers and were just average folks. "Gemütlichkeit" was their catch phrase for "user friendly" software at the time (80-90's). Language can be a tricky thing, at times. Once I was in large German department store during holiday. It was quite crowded. Waiting in a line some folks broke up the line by wandering through. I could not think of the German phrase for "excuse me there is a line here", so I blurted out "Achtung" (attention). The crowd parted like the Red Sea. My German companion laughed and said they thought I was a policeman directing them to "make way". Live and learn. Bottom line, "error messages are quite important".
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day" Badfinger
jmaida wrote:
error messages counted a lot and for good reason as many of the users were not engineers and were just average folks.
Could somebody tell Microsoft, please? PLEASE?
Telegraph marker posts ... nothing to do with IT Phasmid email discussion group ... also nothing to do with IT Beekeeping and honey site ... still nothing to do with IT
-
Great story! Reminds me of Blinkenlights[^]. :laugh: ACHTUNG! ALLES TURISTEN UND NONTEKNISCHEN LOOKENSPEEPERS! DAS KOMPUTERMASCHINE IST NICHT FÜR DER GEFINGERPOKEN UND MITTENGRABEN! ODERWISE IST EASY TO SCHNAPPEN DER SPRINGENWERK, BLOWENFUSEN UND POPPENCORKEN MIT SPITZENSPARKEN. IST NICHT FÜR GEWERKEN BEI DUMMKOPFEN. DER RUBBERNECKEN SIGHTSEEREN KEEPEN DAS COTTONPICKEN HÄNDER IN DAS POCKETS MUSS. ZO RELAXEN UND WATSCHEN DER BLINKENLICHTEN.
When I was 14 (early 70s) I broke my leg whilst on a school skiing trip, in Austria. Was taken pronto to the Bezirkskrankenhaus (well, it made me laugh, even at the time). I was on a trolley in a corridor (yes it happened even then, in Austria!) and a lot of medical-looking people came by and tried to establish from me what was wrong. About 4 or 5 failed to communicate (I knew zero German) and wandered off. Eventually I had inspiration (memory of some old war film, I think) and the next one that came along, I just pointed to my leg and said (slowly, loudly and clearly of course) "Ist kaput". That's all that was needed - got whisked through and treated within minutes. :laugh:
Telegraph marker posts ... nothing to do with IT Phasmid email discussion group ... also nothing to do with IT Beekeeping and honey site ... still nothing to do with IT
-
I found this very hard to read.
I found it hard to understand, software error don't like, remove error, get general Windows error, like even less, try to explain error message useful was removed.
-
The boss was right - sarcasm in error messages is rarely helpful (thus contrary to their purpose) and suggests arrogance on the author's part, so is best avoided.