PLACEHOLDER ONLY Someone please write witty headline here
- Reference: 1702888387
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/12/18/who_me/
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On this particular Monday, meet a reader we'll Regomize as "John" who, it seems, missed the lesson about never putting placeholder text anywhere it might find itself in front of the eyes of someone who ought not to see it. Instead, he learned the hard way: on the job.
Back at the start of the century, John was working as a developer for a web design business. Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 was the dominant browser at the time, and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) were only just starting to tame the dominant designs of the time – the horror that was nested tables inside nested tables inside nested tables. Ugh.
[1]
John's employer was at the pointy end of the CSS juggernaut and had built a very nifty site for a client who had one unusual request: it had to work for visitors using Internet Explorer 5, for Mac. Apple's own Safari browser was still very new at the time and while most of the client's Mac customers were likely to have made the switch, many would still be using Microsoft's unloved browser.
[2]
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Specifically, the client's point of contact with John's firm was still using IE5 for Mac, so it had to meet with her approval.
Now, the trick with that was that IE5 didn't handle JavaScript or CSS in the same way as IE6 did, which meant a bunch of extra server-side code was written to spring into action if the web server spotted a Mac running IE5. Quite clever, really.
[4]
The process of putting it together was very frustrating, though, as John was (and still is) a PC user and had no Mac of his own. He would have to wait until one of the Mac-using designers left their machine (or kick them off) in order to test his changes.
So at some point in the development of his Mac-sniffing code, he added a none-too-subtle dig at the platform that was causing him such frustration: a message that would appear on the debugging screen when it had sniffed out a Mac.
[5]Enterprising techie took the bumpy road to replacing vintage hardware
[6]Sysadmin's favorite collection of infallible utilities failed … foully
[7]IT sent the intern to sort out the nasty VP who was too important to bother with backups
[8]Why have just one firewall when you can fire all the walls?
Fast-forward to the completion of the project, and it's proudly demonstrated to the client – including the IE5-using Mac. The site worked perfectly and the demo apparently went well.
Until John's supervisor took a perturbed phone call: "Why does the website say 'Stinky Mac' at the top of the view?" the supervisor was asked.
While the boss tried to think of any good reason the website should proffer such a message to a user, the phone call got worse: "How does it even know everybody calls me Mac?"
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In the decades since then, John has learned two very important lessons. First: Never ever let the debugging screen appear in front of an end user. Second: Because the debugging screen just might accidentally appear in front of a user whether you want it to or not, never put anything on there that you don't want a user to see.
It's a silly mistake, but one that we at Vulture Central admit we've made once or twice ourselves. If you've ever had a client see something they ought not to have seen, you're hardly alone. Send [10]an email to Who, Me? with your tales of silly mistakes and we'll share your burden with others.
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[5] https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/11/who_me/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/04/who_me/
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Yes I'm going I'll get my coat mac
That would be the one with the factory-paired buttons, right?
A developer at a previous employer, once wrote some code that threw an exception saying "If this happens then speak to George" as he'd assumed that this would only ever be seen in debugging.
This was fine, until a customer with a sense of humour rang up asking to speak to George...
The self-same software once had a SELECT COUNT(*) statement missing the O out of count which has a much less amused customer complain...
Protip: create a custom function that returns your boss's name instead of an error!
I used to work for a large energy company that published a job advert to the internet for an "accocuntant".
Either HR didn't feel a need for proof reading or spell checkers, or perhaps they got exactly the candidate they were seeking, and through various promotions he's now Director of Strategy & External Affairs.
Pardon my sql :)
"SELECT COUNT(*) statement missing the O"
Probably a short for
select count(employee) from payroll
where payroll.payscale = 'C-Suite'
I can think of a few organisations where the count() aggregate function had better return at least a 32 bit unsigned to avoid an integer overflow for this query.
"SELECT COUNT(*) statement missing the O"
Very apt, I guess, that the "open bracket-asterix-close bracket" provided a visual representation of the "COUNT missing the O"
I've had code which was heavily commented "Do not change this - it's more complicated than it looks. Talk to a, b, or c - or this line of management"
But the real question is - was george still there, or was there a new george, who worked in a different area (catering maybe)?
I've done a few "Warning: This is more complicated than it looks."
On every occasion someone has ignored this, screwed it up and then complained!
Please speak to George
One of our developers also called George (perhaps the same one?) was a very careful developer. His code was
Select..
Case 0
Case 1.
Otherwise
/* There is no way we can get here. If you got here, phone George on...
*/
Write trace entry
Return unknown error
I think the problem was.. Originally the variable was a bit variable. This was upgraded to an int because there were now 3 valid values (yes, no, dont know) - not just 2
Re: Please speak to George
I once had to debug some misbehaving VBScript where something called "blnResult" turned out to be set, at different points, to True, False, -1, 0, 1 and (less understandaably) 2... I wonder if George had been near the same codebase?!
Re: Please speak to George
On very specific occasions, your 'impossible error' can occur. Back in the mists of time a DOS antivirus package fell over with 'impossible error' on one specific system which had faulty memory and other components.
Fortunately in these days of protected mode operating systems, it will generally fail to boot or raise an exception before programs can be affected
Tut
Should have used "rotten Apple" instead.
For dev eyes only
Worked on a product where new functionality was put on a special menu so QA could test it early in the dev cycle. One of the devs implemented a feature & used some placeholder text until product definition decided what to call it. QA immediately contacted him asking: "Simon, what is a choad?"
"...never put anything on there that you don't want a user to see."
That's also true for, e.g., drafting a report that will ultimately be sent to a client. The draft, when sent to the client, contained our comments addressed to the client and also my snarky comments about the client not meant for the client to see. While I got sweaty palms when discovering this, it didn't have any negative consequences for me. I assume, the client simply thought that I'm socially challenged (aka a bit of a prick) and delivered what I needed.
Could've been honest
John could've been brutally honest with his placeholder.
nothing here
> never put anything on there that you don't want a user to see
Such as the two rules of guaranteed success:
1.) Never teach others everything you know
2.) See rule #1
Chance would be a fine thing
《Such as the two rules of guaranteed success:
1.) Never teach others everything you know
2.) See rule #1》
Exercises in futility:
A. trying to teach others anything.
B. encouraging others to learn or study something.
(TWoFT)
The only way of rescuing failure from the jaws of success is to ensure the negation of A and B.
Taking the hint
Worked on a product which was used by military, police, CIA, FBI, MI5, MI6, GCHQ et al. We added some "social network analysis" functions & I used some placeholder text for a hover over hint. Product manager thought that "Work out the most important person & who to kill next", whilst accurate, should probably be revised.
Re: Taking the hint
"Work out the easiest one to pin the blame on and kill them" instead?
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Yes, I've been in this situation and there's few others that have made my blood run quite as cold. It's always a customer you don't have any problems with who ends up on the recieving end of it so you just have to leave it in your head (and certainly not in comments).
FIXME
FIXME: ...Add comment here...
Until John's supervisor took a perturbed phone call: "Why does the website say 'Stinky Mac' at the top of the view?" the supervisor was asked.
While the boss tried to think of any good reason the website should proffer such a message to a user, the phone call got worse: "How does it even know everybody calls me Mac?"
So he wasn't the Apple of the boss' eye?