in reply to Re: Re: Perl Style: About error messges opening files
in thread Perl Style: About error messges opening files

I'm perfectly capable of remembering 3 digits for a short time.

So would I be, if I didn't get interrupted three times on my way from the circ desk to my desk (twenty feet) to fix the problem :-)

Error messages are sent to me by email. The one time per week that someone actually calls, they're always reading it off the screen. Perhaps you code for the internetless?

Close. Think in terms of people who print email and have to disconnect from the internet to use the phone. Also, I said "End Users", so think in terms of people who don't know how to copy and paste. (Really. I've been teaching introductory computer classes twice a month at the library since 2000 and have by doing so significantly increased the number of people in town who copy and paste. Yes, Galion is a fairly technophobic community. People have access to the internet, but they're not comfortable with it.)

Nearly half of the bug reports I get are on sticky notes. Most of the rest are delivered verbally, either in person (this is WAY more common than you would suspect) or on the phone -- and, as noted, almost all of the internet connections around here are dialup, and most people don't have a second line for voice, so they have to disconnect to use the phone. Couple that with an end-user mentality that requires them to "x out of" (i.e., close) the web browser in order to disconnect, and you have a recipe for not being able to remember an error message to give it to me. When I first started this job, vanishingly close to 100% of the bug reports I got were totally useless, along the lines of "it didn't work". Worse, when I started asking them to write down the error message next time and bring it to me, I discovered that they had no idea what to write down and so usually wrote down a non-unique part of the message. (No amount of cajoling can get most end users to write down an _entire_ error message if it has any length to it at all.) An error message like "Grouchy Pickles" will actually _get_ to me, because it sticks in the user's head; then I grep for it, and I know which line the error occurred on, which is more than I was usually able to discover from error reports before I adopted this technique.

If you're writing stuff that gets used mostly by powerusers then you probably won't need this technique.

;$;=sub{$/};@;=map{my($a,$b)=($_,$;);$;=sub{$a.$b->()}} split//,".rekcah lreP rehtona tsuJ";$\=$;[-1]->();print
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Re: Re: Perl Style: About error messges opening files
by Juerd (Abbot) on May 04, 2004 at 17:28 UTC

    I never knew such people could get jobs where they work with computers. Is there no computer education there? Also, I fear very much that I ever get a pickled error message. Please do not let your software be distributed outside your (hopefully small) post-it scribbling community.

    Juerd # { site => 'juerd.nl', plp_site => 'plp.juerd.nl', do_not_use => 'spamtrap' }

[reply]
      I never knew such people could get jobs where they work with computers.

      Most of the people in question are patrons; they may or may not use computers at work (about 50% I estimate), but those who do mostly only use them at work for highly field-specific applications.

      Is there no computer education there?

      I don't have much trouble with people who are still in school; we're mostly talking about adults here, especially from about age 35 up. The library (where I work) pretty much *is* their source of education. The ones who have kids at home and _get along with them_ can learn computers from their kids, of course, but that doesn't cover everyone. My view of the community's education level is probably slanted a bit since people who already understand computers don't feel the need to come to the library for help with them, but it remains true that when there's a problem with one of the library's web thingies, I invariably hear about it from somebody with a very poor understanding of computers and a fundamental inability to remember the exact words of an error message unless it's very short and nontechnical.

      Please do not let your software be distributed outside your (hopefully small) post-it scribbling community.

      This is mostly custom web stuff I'm talking about, but due to the nature of the website (small public library), almost all users are local to the community. No, I don't put this sort of error messages in modules intended for the CPAN.

      I fear very much that I ever get a pickled error message.

      Now you're just being silly.

      ;$;=sub{$/};@;=map{my($a,$b)=($_,$;);$;=sub{$a.$b->()}} split//,".rekcah lreP rehtona tsuJ";$\=$;[-1]->();print
[reply]

        Now you're just being silly.

        Not nearly as silly as or die "Twinkies and Spandex\n";.

        Juerd # { site => 'juerd.nl', plp_site => 'plp.juerd.nl', do_not_use => 'spamtrap' }

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