Re: Error handling strategies (db related)

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On Tue, 2010-04-27 at 12:12 -0400, tedd wrote:

> At 4:13 PM +0200 4/27/10, Peter Lind wrote:
> >If only the world consisted of smart users ... I think, however, that
> >we're generally closer to the opposite. And no, I don't hate users -
> >I've just seen too many people do things that were very far removed
> >from "smart".
> >
> >Regards
> >Peter
> 
> Peter et al:
> 
> Smart is a relative term. I have one account where the majority of 
> users are PhD's -- and they indeed have the "smarts" and the 
> sheepskins to prove it.
> 
> You would be surprised as to how many of those forget their logons 
> and insist that they did not enter their logons as they were 
> recorded. For example, I had one user (i.e., fictitious Mary Smith) 
> who said that "marysmith" was not her logon because she always uses 
> "msmith" for all her logons -- but that was what was recorded in the 
> database.
> 
> I tried to explain to her that the database doesn't make this stuff 
> up, for example how would the script know to use "marysmith" for her 
> logon if she had not provided it? But somehow it was the script's 
> fault for not knowing she always uses "msmith". Keep in mind these 
> are people with PhD's. I have many other stories.
> 
> As I see it, one of the problems we face as developers is confronting 
> user's egos. They have an image of themselves and our scripts can 
> threaten that image by making them feel ignorant. We have to deal 
> with that in a way that informs them, but doesn't demean them in any 
> fashion.
> 
> Here's a real world example -- over 20 years ago a company made an 
> electronic hand-held chess game.
> 
> While the game was successful, the company received a considerable 
> amount of repairs, way over what they had expected. They wanted to 
> find out why and after an investigation they found that their 
> software made the computer's chess-moves TOO quickly. So, they place 
> a time delay into the software so that it would "look" to the user 
> like the computer was thinking about its moves. That time-delay 
> solved the problem.
> 
> Apparently, some end-users got pissed when they thought the computer 
> could so easily beat them. But, if the computer took more time to 
> beat them, then that was more acceptable and the end-users were less 
> inclined to throw the game into a wall.
> 
> So with respect to software engineering, how users view what's going 
> on is important.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> tedd
> 
> -- 
> -------
> http://sperling.com  http://ancientstones.com  http://earthstones.com
> 


Sounds like you've got a few stories that would a lot of people happy
were you to share them on the DailyWTF ;)

Thanks,
Ash
http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk



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