Where's the outrage?
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(I am at present trying to even figure out what Kafka does other than allow me to use Kafkaesque as an adjective more frequently and make the highly paid consultant happy that I'm not asking him to use HTTP)
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Why do I even work in this godforsaken shitshow of an industry?
That's a rhetorical question, right?
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The ribbon might not be perfect, but it's a shitload better than what came before.
I dunno. Someone who hates the ribbon in this day and age probably liked having to guess whether any given function was in a menu, on a dialog, in a toolbar, or a task pane, and is upset having to re-learn everything.
Meanwhile everyone I know who uses Office a lot--not that that's a huge sample--prefers the Ribbon once they used it for a while.
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You're talking as if it's a rule and as if it's any different with any other kind of API.
But it is! Look at COM, for instance. COM says once you publish an interface, you can't change it. If you need to, you need a new interface. That's why there's things like IViewObject, IViewObject2, IViewObject3, and so on. This way you don't ever break clients using the older interface. Clients that want the new features have to opt in to using the new interface.
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There was no patching for cartridge based games.
This is not true. Atari Basic had a nasty bug involving deleting source in multiples of 256 bytes--you'd lock up the machine. ANTIC magazine published a small routine (yes, you'd have to run it every time you turned the computer on) that fixed the problem.
(I'm simplifying for the sake of the discussion--the real situation was a bit more complex.)
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But it is! Look at COM, for instance. COM says once you publish an interface, you can't change it. If you need to, you need a new interface. That's why there's things like IViewObject, IViewObject2, IViewObject3, and so on. This way you don't ever break clients using the older interface. Clients that want the new features have to opt in to using the new interface.
You still need to take care to do that, because COM won't and can't enforce that. And you can do that with any other kind of API, including CLI. There is no difference.
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And COM is a giant pile of trash which even WtfCorp has consigned to the scrapheap.
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You still need to take care to do that, because COM won't and can't enforce that.
Ok, true, but every COM tutorial/reference I've ever seen makes a point of saying it.
And you can do that with any other kind of API, including CLI.
While that's true, they generally don't have an explicit rule that you can't change an interface.
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And COM is a giant pile of trash which even WtfCorp has consigned to the scrapheap.
While that may be true, it's hardly relevant to the point. Versioning interfaces the way COM does solves @blakeyrat's stated problem that you can't change the way git works because that will break all the clients.
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Except you're now requiring users to explicitly say "I want the new interface" when driving it by hand.
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Except you're now requiring users to explicitly say "I want the new interface" when driving it by hand.
No, if I were doing this I would've left git.exe unchanged. If you want the new functionality, you run git2.exe (or whatever.) What you said could theoretically cause poorly-written clients to break.
Note this is a way COM is actually better than parsing text--you COULD keep everything in the same executable, clients would just have the option of QI-ing for IGit or IGit2, and old clients that don't know about IGit2 can't possibly be affected (barring bugs, of course.)
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Which is a way of having the user explicitly ask.
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The computing industry's Big Lie is that a computer, like a washing machine, is a labor saving device. It isn't.
All that IT does is raise the bar: we can do more and prettier things with computers than without, therefore more and prettier things must be done.
So we're doing more, but it hasn't saved us any labor?
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@flabdablet said:
The computing industry's Big Lie is that a computer, like a washing machine, is a labor saving device. It isn't.
All that IT does is raise the bar: we can do more and prettier things with computers than without, therefore more and prettier things must be done.
So we're doing more, but it hasn't saved us any labor?
Nope, definitely not.
Oh yeah, that reminds me, I need to search my mail for that catalog from Amazon, fill out the form, write a check, then mail it. If I'm lucky, I'll get the item I ordered in 3-5 weeks!
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Which is a way of having the user explicitly ask.
Fine, if you want to nitpick like that.
I don't have a problem with doing it the way I outlined, though. It's the only feasible way to not break back-compat.
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While that's true, they generally don't have an explicit rule that you can't change an interface.
It's not a silver bullet, either. In many cases (like REST or CLI APIs), adding things to the interface is just fine and doesn't break anything. Interface proliferation is a bad thing in itself, too.
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I think your sarcasm meter has teh cooties.
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New site - "is it just me or is it sarcasm cooties" where the answer is always "it's down to you"?
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The good ideas thread is
. 
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XenForo is closed-source and has a WYSYWYG editor, AFAIK. You could migrate the community server thing you're already hosting, and we could have a XenForo based TDWTF forum.
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In many cases (like REST or CLI APIs), adding things to the interface is just fine and doesn't break anything.
If you aren't going to break anything--and you know it--you don't need the versioning rules. If you can't be sure, you're safer using them.
I never said it was a panacea. I said it avoids the problem I was talking about.
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More to the point: if he can't stand the heat, why does he keep setting fire to the kitchen?
Why is everyone suddenly so concerned about kitchens? I thought this was a thread about WYSIWYG.
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And built in PHP! They use Redactor for their WYSIWYG.
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This is all fucking broken. And it's not about development tooling, either, though that's one of the worst offenders. It's literally everything.
So much this. The IT industry is in the business of selling old ideas as new, every 4 to 8 years or so. And it succumbs to silver bullets like no other. This is impossible to stop. It is human nature, and the nature of the systems that we build for ourselves. One must learn to live with it, which is why I am considering demanding that every developer I interview read John Gall's classic book on Systems - "Systemantics" aka "The Systems Bible". Fundamentally, I believe the problem lies with the fact that the IT industry is one of youth who believe that only they are smart enough to solve the problems that have stymied those old fogies for years. And I speak as only a 33 year old.
My favorite points (in all caps, as in the book)
- The Fundamental Theorem of Systemantics
- NEW SYSTEMS MEAN NEW PROBLEMS
- The Generalized Uncertainty Principle
- COMPLEX SYSTEMS EXHIBIT UNEXPECTED BEHAVIOR
- aka. REALITY IS MORE COMPLEX THAN IT SEEMS
- The Functionary's Falsity
- PEOPLE IN SYSTEMS DO NOT DO WHAT THE SYSTEM SAYS THEY ARE DOING
- The Operational Fallacy
- THE SYSTEM ITSELF DOES NOT DO WHAT IT SAYS IT IS DOING
- The Naming Fallacy
- THE NAME IS MOST EMPHATICALLY NOT THE THING
- The F.L.A.W (Fundamental Law of Administrative Workings)
- TO THOSE WITHIN A SYSTEM THE OUTSIDE REALITY TENDS TO PALE AND DISAPPEAR
- The Inherent Limitation
- EXPERIENCE ISN’T HEREDITARY. IT AIN’T EVEN CONTAGIOUS.
- Gresham's Law
- BAD DESIGN CAN RARELY BE OVERCOME BY MORE DESIGN, WHETHER GOOD OR BAD.
- The 'Problem' Problem
- GREAT ADVANCES DO NOT COME OUT OF SYSTEMS DESIGNED TO PRODUCE GREAT ADVANCES.
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Oh and the best one.
THE AUTOMATIC PILOT IS NOT MUCH HELP WITH HIGHJACKERS
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I need to read that
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I need to read that
To be honest if more software folks had a better grounding in systems engineering, a lot of the bad would probably be excised. Of course, this would also lead to more spectacular failures, as better engineered systems tend to fail spectacularly. WHEN A FAIL-SAFE SYSTEM FAILS, IT FAILS BY FAILING TO FAIL SAFE.
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So we're doing more, but it hasn't saved us any labor?
Exactly. We're (arguably) getting more stuff done, but nobody is working any less hard than they did before IT became a thing.
Edit: also, the more doing-stuff we manage to wedge into any given quantity of time, the faster the unintended consequences mount up. Technical debt comes with a punishing interest rate.
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I believe the problem lies with the fact that the IT industry is one of youth who believe that only they are smart enough to solve the problems that have stymied those old fogies for years.
A friend of mine used to use a sig that read "those who fail to understand networking protocols are doomed to re-implement them - poorly - over port 80".
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Does Confluence have a setting like that as well? Because I'd love to turn that off.
When hell freezes over it will. That Confluence editor is the most successful attempt ever at combining the disadvantages of manual markup with those of WYSIWYG.
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A friend of mine used to use a sig that read "those who fail to understand networking protocols are doomed to re-implement them - poorly - over port 80".
Nice one. Reminds me one of the better keynotes I heard these years that boils down to a similar thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_zacX9DcZA
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And there we go the old " we hate web developers " so we are going to make as many snarky remarks as possible camp shows their face again.
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Exactly. We're (arguably) getting more stuff done, but nobody is working any less hard than they did before IT became a thing.
Well, that's what labor saving does. It lets you do other things. So we're more productive and have better lives. You can disagree that our standard of living hasn't improved, but that's probably just because you live in Australia.
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Well, that's what labor saving does. It lets you do other things. So we're more productive and have better lives.
This is both true and false. One of the challenges in many businesses is differentiating labor savings from busy work. There's a good book about what's happening to our brains, and another one about ways to try to correct it individually.
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You can disagree that our standard of living hasn't improved
...but you'd be stupid, given those gigantic glass TVs with only 20 channels, cars that didn't have airbags and ABS, wildly powerful computers that let us look up almost anything at a moment's notice, CPAPs, and so on.
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@boomzilla said:
You can disagree that our standard of living hasn't improved
...but you'd be stupid, given those gigantic glass TVs with only 20 channels, cars that didn't have airbags and ABS, wildly powerful computers that let us look up almost anything at a moment's notice, CPAPs, and so on.
Oh, great, now those backward Australians are going to want to move here.
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Oh, great, now those backward Australians are going to want to move here.
Naw, there's not enough fauna trying to kill you. They'd all get bored and go back.
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Imagine a cobbler. He knows how to cobble … does a little hobby hobbling on the side … he likes to hobble so much … You can't just cobble these crappy shoes like that.
Maybe a little proof reading? I'm not sure if he enjoys hobbling or cobbling for fun.
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And there we go the old " we hate web developers " so we are going to make as many snarky remarks as possible camp shows their face again.
I try not to hate web developers, but then I use literally any site on the Internet and-- well, there's the hate boiling up again.
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Maybe a little proof reading? I'm not sure if he enjoys hobbling or cobbling for fun.
More than 1 day and 100 posts up.
It stays the way it is.
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NINE YEARS since that fucking thing first appeared and still my eyeballs skid straight past the Undo arrow and the Help circle and I have to go "oh yeah, those aren't even on the menus any more". And Tools > Options is where now? Oh, it's been shredded and then swept up behind that pseudo Start button with all the other stuff they couldn't figure out what to name a Ribbon tab for. SO MUCH HATE.
While I can understand some of your pain, why don't you use the keyboard shortcuts? They will save you time and (apparently) frustration.
the Undo arrow
Ctrl-Z
the Help circle
F1
HTH, HAND
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More than 1 day and 100 posts up.
It stays the way it is.
I wasn't asking you to fix it. I was telling to read what you write before you post it. Unless accalias are about to become cartman82s …
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why don't you use the keyboard shortcuts?
Of course I do. But much of my frustration with The Ribbon derives from the way it has almost completely nobbled my ability to explain to other people how to go about fixing their own problems.
@accalia has a useful phrase over in another thread, describing a certain kind of office software user: "the fingerpaint department". I spend a lot of time answering questions from the fingerpaint department with what were, before The Ribbon, easily teachable two-minute sessions on self-help. And if there's one thing I've learned about the fingerpaint department in all the years I've being doing this, it's that you cannot get these people to use, let alone remember, keyboard shortcuts. No, not even Ctrl-Z, X, C, V, A and S that have existed since the original Mac first appeared. You can teach them what to look for and that's about it.
A menu labelled Edit with an entry labelled Undo? That's teachable. A menu labelled Help? That's teachable. Hell, it's even discoverable. Little hieroglyphics that change position and style on every release? Fuggedaboudit.
You have to remember that these are people who do not instinctively look for Undo when they've just accidentally wiped out a paragraph or six. They're flat out remembering that Undo exists, let alone that it's bound to Ctrl-Z.
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@accalia has a useful phrase over in another thread, describing a certain kind of office software user: "the fingerpaint department"
I meant it to describe Graphics Designers, particularly those who are
and need to have macs because they can work with Photoshop so much better on macs (uh.... no, you can do that just fine on windows too. I wouldn't complain except their macs come out of our budget!)but i can see how the term would apply here too.
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A menu labelled Edit with an entry labelled Undo? That's teachable. A menu labelled Help? That's teachable. Hell, it's even discoverable. Little hieroglyphics that change position and style on every release? Fuggedaboudit.
The Undo button still uses the same icon and placement in Word 2013 as it did in Word 2007. It's also one of only three icons that's always showing by default (the other two being Save and Redo).
Choose a better example.
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The simple fact is that it is nowhere the people I deal with can find it (they're fully self-trained to ignore everything in title bars, including titles and window controls - moving and resizing windows? Dark magicks!). Stuff that's actually in The Ribbon - or at least whichever tab pane of it happens to have been exposed by accident today - these people often find before I do (see previous comments on eyeball skidding).
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or at least whichever tab pane of it happens to have been exposed by accident today
How do your users manage to drive to work in the morning?
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[quote="Lorne_Kates, post:241, topic:54759, full:true]
I try not to hate web developers, but then I use literally any site on the Internet and-- well, there's the hate boiling up again.
[/quote]I thought you liked me
Seriously though, most of what's out there on the net is badly written and people like some of the people I've worked with as the prime reason; the barrier to entry is the lowest of the computer programming disciplines. Not to mention that anyone doing something new and shiny and sexy is probably showing off and it's a shitshow underneath.
Just remember, if you think the IT industry is a shitshow in general, the web dev end really is the bottom of the pile where the oldest, smelliest shit ends up.
