Bugzzzzz



  • Continuing the discussion from Git/Atlassian Stash - how do combine commits before making a PR?:

    @sloosecannon said:

    Ah, I see. Very well then.

    Analogy time:

    If there was a button in your car which, when pressed, caused the transmission to just drop straight down on the road, would you consider that a problem with the car? Y/N?

    If there's a drag-and-drop operation in Windows which causes Windows to become unbootable, would you consider that a problem with Windows? Y/N?

    If your answers differ from each other, please show your work.


  • :belt_onion:

    If there was a way to remove the hard drive from the computer, causing it to fail catastrophically to boot an OS, would you consider that a problem? Y/N?


  • :belt_onion:

    Also

    @blakeyrat said:

    If there was a button in your car which, when pressed, caused the transmission to just drop straight down on the road, would you consider that a problem with the car? Y/N?

    Yes.
    @blakeyrat said:
    If there's a drag-and-drop operation in Windows which causes Windows to become unbootable, would you consider that a problem with Windows? Y/N?

    Yes, if that was an intended use of that feature. If it's a side effect, no.



  • If putting the hard drive back in to the computer didn't fix the problem, then yes I would consider that to be a serious problem.

    It's a matter of expectations. It's like, say, selecting all of the files and directories in the root of your system drive and then ticking the "Compress contents to save disk space" checkbox. What you expect to happen and what really does happen are quite different. It's like shifting your car into reverse while driving fowards, only completely different.



  • There's a point to what Blakey says and I mostly agree with it, but at some point, users need to realize that just because you can take a screwdriver and gouge your own eye out with it doesn't mean that the screwdriver has a design flaw, or that the screwdriver specification is wrong.

    Otherwise we should just all surround ourselves in packing bubble wrap and be done with it.



  • @dstopia said:

    There's a point to what Blakey says and I mostly agree with it, but at some point, users need to realize that just because you can take a screwdriver and gouge your own eye out with it doesn't mean that the screwdriver has a design flaw, or that the screwdriver specification is wrong.

    If I, using super engineering skillz, invented a screwdriver that was just as effective, durable, and inexpensive as a traditional screwdriver, but made eye-stabbing impossible, would you endorse replacing all traditional screwdrivers with it? Y/N?



  • If there was a button in your car which, when pressed, caused the transmission to just drop straight down on the road, would you consider that a problem with the car? Y/N?

    That depends. Would it land on your thread starting hand?


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @blakeyrat said:

    If there was a button in your car which, when pressed, caused the transmission to just drop straight down on the road, would you consider that a problem with the car? Y/N?

    Well, now, it depends. Why is this button there? Maybe it's the equivalent of dropping the warp core on the Enterprise, did you ever think of that?



  • The button is in the car. The transmission drops straight down. I'm not Mr. Fantastic.

    So... no.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @DCRoss said:

    hen yes I would consider that to be a serious problem.

    It depends! Maybe your timeclock application has a delete employee button. If you click it and it deletes an employee, that's not a bug! It's also not a problem, unless you weren't supposed to delete the employee. But it still wouldn't be a bug in the software.



  • I made that exact complaint about a online system before, the caption said something like "delete employee" instead of "delete user account" or something sensible.

    Nobody else got it.

    Then again, nobody here gets why GitHub's using "deletions" instead of "deleted lines" is wrong, either.



  • There's a really simple solution to both problems.

    Put your nuts between the pages of a large book. Slam it shut. Problem solved.



  • Could not reproduce.



  • Exactly.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    If I, using super engineering skillz, invented a screwdriver that was just as effective, durable, and inexpensive as a traditional screwdriver, but made eye-stabbing impossible, would you endorse replacing all traditional screwdrivers with it? Y/N?

    No, because it likely wouldn't be as easy-to-use, and eye stabbing with screwdrivers is not a major problem.



  • Literally everything is buggy, then. I can assure you there is no implement ever made on the face of the earth that can't be used for something beyond what the specification implies, and there will never be. Otherwise we would have solved the universe, and that's impossible.

    Like I said, there's a point where you stop the reductionist charade of "I can make anything do something that's not covered by the spec" or we end up wrapped in plastic bubble wrap. And that's not something I want out of the software I use or I develop.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @blakeyrat said:

    I made that exact complaint about a online system before, the caption said something like "delete employee" instead of "delete user account" or something sensible.

    Nobody else got it.

    DRAAAAAAAAAXXXXX!

    I take your point, but only people who are Drax don't understand what the incorrect label means.



  • There is no hard line between "bug" and "poorly designed feature that should be removed".

    Semantics are literally the most useless thing to argue about. Yes, including politics or religion.


  • :belt_onion:

    One could even say we'd be in a @dstopia were that to happen.

    I'll show myself out.



  • @DCRoss said:

    If putting the hard drive back in to the computer didn't fix the problem

    Maybe it was removed by this guy:

    http://i.imgur.com/tyUS59z.png



  • @blakeyrat said:

    If there was a button in your car which, when pressed, caused the transmission to just drop straight down on the road, would you consider that a problem with the car? Y/N?

    I understand that missiles/rockets have a big red button you can press that causes them to explode in flight. But it's a feature. Almost any saw (electric or manual) can be used to remove body appendages (intentionally or unintentionally).

    We often design features into our tools that can be destructive if misused. It isn't the results of misuse of the feature that defines whether the feature is a misdesign; it is the rationale for it.

    • Having a delete, encrypt or compress files...that can also be misused on system files? Well the tool obviously has value, so meh...
    • Having a button to blow up the rocket? Rockets out of control are dangerous, so meh...
    • Having a saw that can remove appendages? Well, you can't make a saw that won't...if misused...so meh...
    • Having a button to drop the transmission out of the car...why? What could possibly be gained by having that? So that would be misdesign.

    @DCRoss said:

    It's like shifting your car into reverse while driving fowards, only completely different.

    I've done that. It leaves black streaks on the road. (The transmission still worked afterward.)

    @ben_lubar said:

    Maybe it was removed by this guy:

    I especially loved the bulb he's inserted in the power supply.



  • Yeah, like your brakes stop working, you push that button and use the transmission as an anchor... I'll call it ATSS.


  • FoxDev

    @CoyneTheDup said:

    Well, you can't make a saw that won't...if misused...so meh...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3mzhvMgrLE

    :-D



  • @dstopia said:

    we should just all surround ourselves in packing bubble wrap and be done with it

    Ulli's Roy Orbison In Clingfilm Website


  • Java Dev

    I'm pretty sure you have to click past at least one warning screen to even see the contents of the windows folder. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a special one if you start going about deleting files there, but I'm too chicken to try out on my life install and I don't have a VM handy.



  • @accalia said:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3mzhvMgrLE

    :-D

    This is a very cool safety feature...but it doesn't change my argument. It just changes the one statement:

    • Having a saw that destroys itself to prevent removal of appendages? Well, that's clearly a necessary safety feature...so meh..

  • FoxDev



  • I was a bit surprised to learn this has actually been around for about 15 years. Today was the first I ever heard of it.
    @CoyneTheDup said:

    Well, that's clearly a necessary safety feature.

    Disappointingly, but unsurprisingly, the big manufacturers of table saws disagree, and are actively trying to prevent the Congress or CPSC from agreeing, because they would have to licence the patents from SawStop, and it would make their products more expensive. Currently, AFICT, you can only buy saws with this feature directly from SawStop, and from the prices on the Google search results page, they are rather expensive (at least in part because they appear to make mostly higher-end saws, not so much the $150 ones you'd find at Home Depot).

    Filed under: Belgium 500 errors... and a WSOD if I try to open Dicksores in a new window. Yay.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    I remember reading about that a while ago. Apparently the SawStop guy tried to sell his feature to the people who make saws, and they weren't interested in paying what he was asking, so he is apparently trying to get legislation passed to mandate all table saws have SawStop.

    Hopefully I've managed to put bias against both sides in that recap so nobody thinks I'm taking a side because I don't know enough to.

    I gather that tripping the device means you to buy a new saw. That's probably cheaper than losing a finger, but it probably rankles the legion of people who aren't in any danger of losing a finger.



  • @FrostCat said:

    I gather that tripping the device means you to buy a new saw.

    I gathered that you need to buy a new blade and a new SawStop module. I don't remember if it was on the video or something I read, but I remember $60. A lot less the cost of an amputation. Apparently some other manufacturers are claiming you may need to buy a new saw because of the possibility of "hidden damage."

    @FrostCat said:

    the legion of people who think they aren't in any danger of losing a finger

    There are no legions of people who aren't in any danger of losing a finger to a power saw (except those who never use them at all, of course). Power tools vary in their potential for harm; rotary saws are fairly near the top of the list (of common ones). People who think they're safe are likely to become complacent, and are therefore at higher risk. I once knew a carpenter who used power saws every day for decades; one day he was surprised to find himself with only one thumb, and somewhat less blood than he'd had previously. (That was a hand-held circular saw, but the idea still holds: People who think they're safe aren't.)



  • @HardwareGeek said:

    Disappointingly, but unsurprisingly, the big manufacturers of table saws disagree, and are actively trying to prevent the Congress or CPSC from agreeing

    @FrostCat said:

    Apparently the SawStop guy tried to sell his feature to the people who make saws, and they weren't interested in paying what he was asking, so he is apparently trying to get legislation passed to mandate all table saws have SawStop.

    :rolleyes: Wouldn't it be wonderful if business could be done on a basis other than legislative capture?

    @HardwareGeek said:

    A lot less the cost of an amputation.

    It's only obvious if you're not running a company that will have to spend 20¢ per saw for a "totally unnecessary safety device."



  • There are two main ways that people react when they see something bad. Either they acknowledge that it's bad, and start looking for ways to improve it, or they start making a thousand excuses about why the bad thing is actually Ok.

    Also, that second group tend to get really aggressive toward that first group, because simply by stating the truth—that bad things are actually bad—they make it harder for the others to maintain their fantasy world.



  • See, I think this type of reaction is what @blakeyrat is complaining about here. The whole premise of that scenario was that the new thing was better than the old thing in every way, and your immediate reaction was to say that you still prefer the bad thing.



  • @Buddy said:

    The whole premise of that scenario was that the new thing was better than the old thing in every way

    But his premise omitted ease-of-use. Therefore, it is likely not Better In Every Way™. It also attempted to solve an nearly non-problem, so ...



  • @abarker said:

    non-problem

    I get that everything in real life's going to involve some kind of trade-off, but if you're going to go around claiming that things that are bad actually aren't bad at all, that's going to make me question your ability to fairly weigh up different alternatives during cost–benefit analysis, which would make me think twice before trusting anything you might suggest.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @HardwareGeek said:

    There are no legions of people who aren't in any danger of losing a finger to a power saw

    Well, yes, that's true.

    I assume that there aren't legions of people getting maimed by power saws every year such that SawStop really needs to be mandatory is all I meant.



  • @Buddy said:

    but if you're going to go around claiming that things that are bad actually aren't bad at all

    I didn't. I said "nearly non-problem". Stop cherry picking and twisting my words.

    Further, how regularly are stabbings - let alone eye stabbings - with screwdrivers a problem? I don't know, as 15 minutes on Google failed to turn up anything useful on the subject. It seems that screwdrivers are not used frequently enough to be tracked on their own. Go figure.

    And let's say you did manage to successfully design a screwdriver that could not be used to stab someone in the eye. There would be a trade off of some sort. It would, by necessity, have to be more expensive, or harder to use, or less effective, or less or durable, or something.

    Now, let's assume that you were able to get around the trade-off problem somehow, what would be the point? You know what works remarkably well for injuring eyes that most humans have several of? Fingers. Fingers can cause insane damage to eyes, including removing them from their sockets, and there's not a damn thing you can do about them. And what about ice picks? Or knives? Or pens? Or any of a number of other common, daily implements that could be used to stab an eye?

    tl;dr: Stabbings with screwdrivers, especially stabbings in the eye with screwdrivers, is such a minimal problem it doesn't appear to be tracked. And if that "problem" was "solved", it would have no appreciable effect on stabbing statistics. It'd be like trying to put out the sun with a few gallons of water.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @CoyneTheDup said:

    spend 20¢ per saw

    I gather it's quite a bit more than that. I CBA to look up the estimates, though.


  • BINNED

    @CoyneTheDup said:

    Wouldn't it be wonderful if business could be done on a basis other than legislative capture?

    When politicians determine what is to be bought and sold, the first things to be bought and sold will be politicians.



  • @abarker said:

    Stop cherry picking and twisting my words.

    And I said ‘if’. Either be drax or not, but don't go reading anything you like into my shit if you're not going to accept the same thing being done to your own.

    @abarker said:

    There would be a trade off of some sort. It would, by necessity, have to be more expensive, or harder to use, or less effective, or less or durable, or something.

    Ok, but my question is if it could be done with no trade off at all, would you use it? I realize that it's hard to imagine—it is well known that blakeyrat sucks at hypotheticals—but please, humor me: imagine that someone had come up with such a thing. Would you use it?



  • @Buddy said:

    Ok, but my question is if it could be done with no trade off at all, would you use it? I realize that it's hard to imagine—it is well known that blakeyrat sucks at hypotheticals—but please, humor me: imagine that someone had come up with such a thing. Would you use it?

    I believe I covered that.

    Searching ...

    (0.5 seconds pass)

    Yep:

    @abarker said:

    Now, let's assume that you were able to get around the trade-off problem somehow, what would be the point? You know what works remarkably well for injuring eyes that most humans have several of? Fingers. Fingers can cause insane damage to eyes, including removing them from their sockets, and there's not a damn thing you can do about them. And what about ice picks? Or knives? Or pens? Or any of a number of other common, daily implements that could be used to stab an eye?

    You forgot to read my entire post, didn't you?

    So, assuming it could be done with no trade off at all: no I wouldn't use it. Here are my reasons:

    1. Read the quote above. There are lot's of other things to use for stabbing.
    2. I have plenty of screwdrivers already. Why would I go buy a new set to prevent something that could be done with a dozen other objects in my house? I would be spending money for no reason at all.


  • Sure, and if someone were to offer something that could protect your eyes from fingers “why would I want that, it's still vulnerable to screwdrivers...”

    I dont care if you like bad things; I'm not trying to take your bad things away from you. All I'm trying to say is that bad things are bad. No matter how inconsequential the badness may seem to you it is badness none the less.

    Why are you so intent on defending badness?



  • @FrostCat said:

    I assume that there aren't legions of people getting maimed by power saws every year such that SawStop really needs to be mandatory is all I meant.

    table saws account for about 60,000 recorded injuries each year (an average of over 150 each day). About 3000 of those injuries result in amputations.

    Popular Mechanics obtained those numbers from someone with a vested interest in emphasizing the danger (Mark Pennington, marketing director of SawStop), so I'd take them with a grain of salt, but they're not completely out of line with the numbers, such as they are1, that I could find on cpsc.gov. Even if the numbers are half of that, a lot of people get hurt by table saws. Roman legions, at least toward the end of the Empire, were typically 1000 to 1500 men, so it would be reasonable to say "legions" of people are injured by table saws each year.

    1 cpsc.gov is "currently undergoing maintenance," so a lot of links aren't working. One set of numbers I did find, from 2001, were about half of that claimed by SawStop, but CPSC also said the type of saw involved was not specified in over 40% of the injury reports, so the number of table saw injuries could indeed be double that reported by CPSC.



  • I'm not defending the badness, I'm saying the infinitesimal reduction of risk isn't worth the cost.



  • @abarker said:

    I'm saying the infinitesimal reduction of risk isn't worth the cost.

    Which you can only do by rejecting the entire premise of the hypothetical “but what if there was no cost” scenario. Which makes me feel like I'm wasting my time here.



  • @Buddy said:

    “but what if there was no cost”

    Assumming the original hypothetical, there is a cost: purchase price. You never claimed they were free. I already have screwdrivers. Why would I waste money to replace them for infinitesimal benefit?



  • @abarker said:

    Fingers can cause insane damage to eyes, including removing them

    Tonight on Fox News.



  • @HardwareGeek said:

    Popular Mechanics obtained those numbers from someone with a vested interest in emphasizing the danger (Mark Pennington, marketing director of SawStop), so I'd take them with a grain of salt, but they're not completely out of line with the numbers, such as they are1

    I agree. This I found is not specifically for circular saws (SawStop's target) but these 2008 figures (PDF) look to be ballpark if you combine handheld and table saws injuries. With an estimated 750,000 injuries every year for all saw types, somehow it seems it must be one of the most dangerous professions.



  • @Buddy said:

    Sure, and if someone were to offer something that could protect your eyes from fingers “why would I want that, it's still vulnerable to screwdrivers...”

    What about things that protect eyes from both?



  • honestly, I don't even know what I'm doing here any more


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