Tuesday, October 12, 1999, 4:30:29 PM, Ali wrote:
> It's all damn irritating but it saved my ass a couple times and I was
> so grateful that I've kept my mouth partially shut about it.
MMMMm, I have another answer.
> I tend to move around with the mouse pretty quickly and I have
> inadvertently selected folders for deletion and realize this just as I
> hit Shift+Del and then am able to cancel the deletion at the time of
> the query. It therefore, ironically makes me not have to be too
> meticulous and therefore a lot quicker since the mistakes are rare but
> do occur with speedy GUI use. :) Just playing devils advocate but it
> does help me in this ironic sense.
Mistakes happen. So what will you rely upon when you mark a bunch of
folders, hit delete, click on yes and *then* realize that you deleted the
wrong files?
Backups are much better solution than endless idiot-proofing because
backups help you in that case as well as many others.
The worst mistake I ever did was to delete the root partition of a
production machine at an ISP. It was one of the two live mail machines. I
used rm -rf * in the wrong mounted directory. It took me 5 hours to rebuild
the lost directories as the machine was severely crippled.
Even after that I do not want idiot-proofing on that command because it
would not have prevented it. If I have a prompt turned on all the time then
I just automatically start hitting it without confirming first. I thought I
was in the right directory in the first place else I would not have entered
the command.
That is the main problem with idiot-proofing. It encourages bad practices
(Ahh, I don't need backups for that, I'll just cancel the operation when it
asks) while offering no real protection as people get used to the extra prompt
and just hit the option they want all the time anyway. That is also why
excessive idiot-proofing is bad. Place it only on operations that technically
need it so when the user *DOES* get a prompt it is not a usual occurrence and
the user will stop to consider what is happening.
--
Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your
ICQ: 5107343 | main connection to the switchboard of souls.
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