Love Usable Field



  • I keep having fun with languages at my workplace.

    When the user presses TAB in our application, it must set the focus on the next field... But not all fields can receive focus. Some must be skipped. So two of my coworkers were discussing the best name for the variable which would point to a field that can receive focus. They came up with focusableField.

    Now I don't know if it's whether the way people pronnounce things here or my dirty mind, but to my ears they only sounds like they're saying "fuck usable field" (when they say "focus", it sounds like "fuck oos".

    And just a week ago, we were discussing the coverage of our tests. By default we code in English, and they had the idea to tag every property and method to check whether they were used in unit tests. Thus we started tagging each of them as a @coveredMember. Fun fact about brazilian Portuguese: in some regions, including where I live, "covering the member" is a slang for coitus. At first they didn't notice it because they hadn't spoken about that in Portuguese, but then I dutifuly asked my colleagues, in our native language, how to best cover a member. They noticed how akward that naming could be, but decided to keep it anyway. Now at least once a day I'm pestering them, asking them how many members they have covered so far.



  •  This reminds me of the Parking Information System we built some time ago.



  • @dhromed said:

     This reminds me of the Parking Information System we built some time ago.

     gosh, you work for the same company I do....



  • "Hello! You've called Parking Information System Support. For number one, press..."



  • @dhromed said:

     This reminds me of the Parking Information System we built some time ago.

    LOL! And THAT reminds me of the Standard Computerized Allowance Method web app I helped build back in ... ummm ... 1999/2000?

    We were like 5 months into developement and someone noticed the acronym in a PowerPoint presentation.The brass didn't like it AT ALL and changed it to Computerized Allowance Method.

    I thought the name I had come up with was very appropriate but, meh. Whatever.

    Heh, last I checked, they were still using that app.



  • I used to work for a company named something like "Slurpy" (at least it started with an "S"). I took over a program that the author had named "Slurpy Macro-Analytic Regionwide Transport" (acronym: "SMART"). I extended the name by adding "- Automated System Simulation".



  • @AndyCanfield said:

    I used to work for a company named something like "Slurpy" (at least it started with an "S"). I took over a program that the author had named "Slurpy Macro-Analytic Regionwide Transport" (acronym: "SMART"). I extended the name by adding "- Automated System Simulation".

    You are my hero!



  • I used to work for a computer manufacturer, who shipped your typical 'ghost image on the back the disk' type rescue system on their PC's.

    When developing the system, I purposefully made an effort to make the acronyms abusive, even to the extent that the terms used to construct them were irrelevant and inaccurate. That didn't matter, because they sounded kinda computery which was enough to get past management.

    It all started on bootup where you had a choice to load the OS or the "Advanced Rescue System Environment."

    On entering the A.R.S.E., you could choose choose to restore the PC to factory settings (dump the image back on the first partition), or use the "Undo New File Usage Change Kernel" to restore certain vital operating system files which the system backed up on a regular basis. If tech support wanted to get to a command prompt to do something other than the predetermined options, there was an option to "Manipulate the Command Line Interface Terminal."

    I even went so far as to describe the A.R.S.E. in the documentation as a "Basic Object Oriented Binary System" because it was the only way I could think of to spell 'BOOBS' in the manual.



  • @EncoreSpod said:

    When developing the system, I purposefully made an effort to make the acronyms abusive, even to the extent that the terms used to construct them were irrelevant and inaccurate.
     

     You are my hero!



  • @EncoreSpod said:

    there was an option to "Manipulate the Command Line Interface Terminal."

    You are the CLIT commander!



  • @dhromed said:

    @EncoreSpod said:

    When developing the system, I purposefully made an effort to make the acronyms abusive, even to the extent that the terms used to construct them were irrelevant and inaccurate.
     

     You are my hero!

    This guy is my hero:

    http://i.imgur.com/qrvz8.png



  • @DaveK said:

    This guy is my hero:
     

    I have a strange inclination to swap "network" for any other random word, like "sandwich", or "didgeridoo".



  • @DaveK said:

    This guy is my hero:

    How old is that?  As it seems like something from ancient times*.


  • sekret PM club

    @DaveK said:

    Stuff
     

    I see what they did there.



  •  Another story whilst at the same company. One day the lawyer comes down to the helldesk, apparently a very unhappy customer was taking some sort of legal action against the company. As part of this process the customer had done one of those data protectiony freedom of informationy type request jobbies where the company is required to reveal all the information held about the customer. This mainly consisted of the logs made against his serial number on the occasions he had contacted tech support.

     

    This lawyer chappy was rather irate and demanded I explain why a helldesk monkey had put this comment on the customer's call log which could get us into a lot of a trouble. Thinking fast I explained that "Sometimes we get a user who isn't very technical and a certain understanding of this is required in order to tailor or support to suit the user's level of experience. The operators use this acronym to describe a customer with limited technical skills so that future operators assisting this customer can better help the customer. It stands for Computer User Not Technical."

     



  • @EncoreSpod said:

    The operators use this acronym to describe a customer with limited technical skills so that future operators assisting this customer can better help the customer. It stands for Computer User Not Technical."

    Kit that required repairing at our place used to be identified with a strip of grey gaffer[1] upon which we wrote[2] the acronym "Failed/Unusable Computer Technology"

    (in a similar vein: early in a previous helldesk position, some of the longer-term techs would overhear incoming calls and signal if the customer had initiative or required plenty of hand-holding. Eventually, one of the techs stuck a length of dot-matrix fanfold paper high up one long wall upon which was marked a sliding scale of "clueful" to "fuckwit", adding customer names as they rang in to log the level of assistance expected. It was dead useful at the time until the powers that be removed it in case of an unannounced customer visit and someone saw their name.)

    [1] "duct tape", for you lot across the pond, I believe.

    [2] "sharpied", likewise.



  • @Cassidy said:

    Kit that required repairing at our place used to be identified with a strip of grey gaffer[1] upon which we wrote[2] the acronym "Failed/Unusable Computer Technology"
    Used to work for a company who had a client who was basically Ray Winstone. Nice chap, not stupid, but not technical at all. One meeting was dragging on and on as we tried to explain to him why/in what way [expensive system] was broken and needed replacing. After yet another lengthy explanation followed by 'nah, mate, still not getting it' - I'll leave you to imagine the glottal stops - I said 'look, it's just completely fucked, OK?'

    My bosses looked absolutely appalled, but before they could say anything the client replied 'right, I thought that was what you lot were trying to say - let's wrap this meeting up and get to the pub, then.'



  • @Cassidy said:

    [1] "duct tape", for you lot across the pond, I believe.

    Gaffer tape and duct* tape are not the same thing. Gaffer tape is known as gaffer tape here, as well.

    • Duct tape is probably more accurately called "duck tape", since it's not meant to be used on ducts.


  • Yep.. but TBH it actually was duct/duck - wasn't proper gaffer.

    I used gaffer when I was a sound engineer. Bloody strong stuff.


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