L.D wrote:
> Why don't I? Because it wasn't my fault. It was a case of very poor
>design on the part of the CLR.BAT program.
Hmm...
>Under those conditions,
>having a program which could allow a typo to wipe every file out of the
>main directory was a serious error.
Perhaps, but as long as the input to that BATch file is correct there's no
damage done. This was also stated in the BATch file.
If I where to put "c:\\" as the thrid argument I would also be in some deep
trouble, and there's no way we can guarantee against that...
> What angers me is when someone says "we can't duplicate that," or "the
>fault has to lie with something you did," and they say it without
>thinking -- without stopping to realize the software needs to run on a
>variety of systems with a variety of users, none of which does things
>precisely like the others.
True, but should there be a warning about what might happen if you enter
the wrong data? That goes for all programs so I really don't see the point...
Besides you have the highest rate of problems that can't be regenerated by
other people, with myself as number two I would assume since nothing I
tried for over a year and half would get me on-line with Arachne until one
version where it just started to work without any changes at all to my system.
I'm not saying (and I doubt anyone is) that bug-reports are bad. Well in a
way they are bad since a program that's bug-free wouldn't have any. ;-)
> It *is* impossible to "idiot proof" a
>program;
Of course, there will always be a "better" idiot ;-)
>I also get paid a heckuva lot less for doing it here!
Hey, you aren't the only underpaied worker here you know!
(snip)
>things
>like knowing the "name" field is supposed to be alpha only, so they
>don't prevent numeric entries from being accepted by the program and
>thus messing something up somewhere along the way.
(snip)
True, but limiting too much is also bad. For instance some servers has the
ZIP code set up for numbers only. This isn't very practical since my ZIP
code (when used outside of Sweden that is) is "S-656 38" ("656 38" inside
Sweden). Another one is the annoying habit of forcing a state to be put in.
Since I don't live in a state I either need to put the region in, or "n/a".
However since this is still ending up on a (snail) mail from the company it
looks weird (not to mention the fact that the number of my house is before
the address). Less controls or better design would be good in these cases.
>Bernie, are you listening?
Yes, I was wondering when you would come to directly addressing me :)
> The thing that gets me so frustrated with
>you is that you are smart, you have the capability of going far, but you
>still don't seem able to "think outside the box" much of the time.
(snip)
Partially true. For starters I assumed this was going to happen:
1. I ask for the line you wrote and where you put it.
2. You find it, either notice yourself that it's wrong or sends it along to
me.
3. I explain that it's incorrect (data is not valid for that file).
This would have taken much less time (and caused less aggrevation between
list-members).
I assumed you would be able to do be able to pull off no. 2 here since you
aren't stupid yourself and when considering the line again you might have
seen the error. But you took this the wrong way which was very
inconvinient. Please remember to read my first message in case you wonder
if I was a bit harsh with you. I agree that from later mails I perhaps was
a bit harsh, but not in the first mail. If the leasson you are trying to
teach me is to see "from a certain point of view" (several that is, but I
couldn't make that a Star Wars quote <g>) I do try. You should try and
answer to specific questions with, preferly short, exact answers. Hmm...
perhaps I should try and keep myself on topic as well to keep my answers
shorter? Anyway...
I also mentioned rather early on that you might be sending the wrong input
for the thrid parameter to clr.bat and that might cause this problem so I
*did* investigate. The diffrences between our two investigations of the
cause was that I knew what the problem was at an early stage (although I
can't really explain how you happened to loose one parameter) and that you
made a "fix" for it (handling accidently removed parameters). Another
diffrence comes in the time we put on it of course, you spent "more than a
few hours" while I only spent the time it took to answer you, formulating
myself as I went by. I don't have the time for lengthy answers on how
Arachne works with DGIs (although I've covered some of it now anyway) nor
do I have time to go over it all once again when I know the answer. You are
partially correct that the fault is in clr.bat - but when used correctly
there's nothing wrong with it (except the "%%%f") as it was. And that makes
the fault yours.
>P.S. How many newbies are going to follow Michael's suggestion and hang
>around the list to ask questions when they see "regulars" being put
>down?
How many do you think even read these messages? ;-)
>P.P.S. Any of you wondering why Arachne doesn't clean up after itself
>as well as it used to when you exited, might want to consider checking
>out the last few lines of Arachne.bat ....
(snip)
Arachne actually does clean it up since it will do it when you clean the
cache ;-)
But it's good that you saw that :)
>Was that poor programming on Michael's part? NO! It was a mistake that
>he happened to miss because he has stared at the same code thousands of
>times and, as many of us do, he saw what he expected to see and not what
>was.
Yes it was a misstake from Michaels side. Was it poor programming? Yes it
was. (No pun intended Michael).
//Bernie
