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An old office mate had been a systems programmer back in the days of mainframes. He once put a local-site patch into the mainframe boot code where the question

An old office mate had been a systems programmer back in the days of mainframes. He once put a local-site patch into the mainframe boot code where the question about wiping and restoring the on-line storage required operators to type in, correctly capitalized and punctuated, the precise string: "Yes, I really do want to spend the entirety of my shift hanging tapes." .... and someone still did it. The struggle is real.

segfaultbuserr 6y ago
In electrical engineering, the saying is "Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool." Also, in computer folklore, there are numerous stories of how non-technical users purposefully destroy foolproof mechanisms by brute-force, e.g. cut the slot on a DDR3 socket to insert a DDR2 RAM module and fry everything... And I wonder whether "don't use brute-force, if you have difficulty getting it in, it means you are doing it wrong" should be taught as the first rule when working with hardware. Unfortunately, to add the confusion, we also have connectors that can be surprisingly hard to connect and disconnect even under normal circumstances...
- IggleSniggle 6y ago
  I think this is a good analogy for software. To the typical user, some software is easy and sensical, while other is obtuse and requires significant jiggering just to do the thing it was ostensibly designed to do.
  - segfaultbuserr 6y ago
    There is a difference, however. The connectors that require a lot of force for insertion and removal have some true advantages, they are usually the simplest, cheapest and generally reliable components. Almost nothing can go wrong with a simple wire terminal, it's just a piece of rectangular or round metal. Although it can be difficult to disconnect for servicing, but you're only expected to do that once per year. On the other hand, "easy" connectors are designed in a way that, instead of requiring the mating force necessary for a good contact , it's provided by the connector mechanism itself, and as a result, they're often more complex, expensive, or fragile, such as a USB connector or a ZIF socket. A software analogy for an "easy" connector would be, "fancy software with good user experience often has a lot of complexity hidden behind of scene, and can be fragile". But I'm not sure what would be the analogy for a cheap connector. Perhaps, a shell script?
    - IggleSniggle 6y ago
      Yes, a shell script, but for the sake of the discussion, you must imagine that to the average user, invoking a shell script is “the same” as navigating through a few settings menus and clicking some checkboxes they don’t understand: that is to say, when the UX is sufficiently lacking, users often enter “well I don’t really know what I’m doing just push through” mode.
- rtx 6y ago
  Atleast in this instance some blame lies with computer hardware designers. Make things simple, no one puts a three the wrong way.
- Uberphallus 6y ago
  In my environment the adage is "when you say foolproof you mean fooldetecting".
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  > And I wonder whether "don't use brute-force, if you have difficulty getting it in, it means you are doing it wrong" should be taught as the first rule when working with hardware. Unfortunately, to add the confusion, we also have connectors that can be surprisingly hard to connect and disconnect even under normal circumstances... And everyone has likely experienced in their lives plenty of appliances, self-assembly kits and other objects where some components required application of force to put together, because there's resistance coming from the feature that prevents the object from coming apart together. My rule of thumb is now that if the force seems to be veering into "could break surrounding structure" levels, or if the thing starts making unexpected sounds, then I'm doing it wrong. ... and then I have to put a CPU on a motherboard and the correct way absolutely does involve close-to-breaking forces and squeaky sounds.

segfaultbuserr 6y ago

In electrical engineering, the saying is "Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool." Also, in computer folklore, there are numerous stories of how non-technical users purposefully destroy foolproof mechanisms by brute-force, e.g. cut the slot on a DDR3 socket to insert a DDR2 RAM module and fry everything... And I wonder whether "don't use brute-force, if you have difficulty getting it in, it means you are doing it wrong" should be taught as the first rule when working with hardware. Unfortunately, to add the confusion, we also have connectors that can be surprisingly hard to connect and disconnect even under normal circumstances...

IggleSniggle 6y ago
I think this is a good analogy for software. To the typical user, some software is easy and sensical, while other is obtuse and requires significant jiggering just to do the thing it was ostensibly designed to do.
- segfaultbuserr 6y ago
  There is a difference, however. The connectors that require a lot of force for insertion and removal have some true advantages, they are usually the simplest, cheapest and generally reliable components. Almost nothing can go wrong with a simple wire terminal, it's just a piece of rectangular or round metal. Although it can be difficult to disconnect for servicing, but you're only expected to do that once per year. On the other hand, "easy" connectors are designed in a way that, instead of requiring the mating force necessary for a good contact , it's provided by the connector mechanism itself, and as a result, they're often more complex, expensive, or fragile, such as a USB connector or a ZIF socket. A software analogy for an "easy" connector would be, "fancy software with good user experience often has a lot of complexity hidden behind of scene, and can be fragile". But I'm not sure what would be the analogy for a cheap connector. Perhaps, a shell script?
  - IggleSniggle 6y ago
    Yes, a shell script, but for the sake of the discussion, you must imagine that to the average user, invoking a shell script is “the same” as navigating through a few settings menus and clicking some checkboxes they don’t understand: that is to say, when the UX is sufficiently lacking, users often enter “well I don’t really know what I’m doing just push through” mode.
rtx 6y ago
Atleast in this instance some blame lies with computer hardware designers. Make things simple, no one puts a three the wrong way.
Uberphallus 6y ago
In my environment the adage is "when you say foolproof you mean fooldetecting".
TeMPOraL 6y ago
> And I wonder whether "don't use brute-force, if you have difficulty getting it in, it means you are doing it wrong" should be taught as the first rule when working with hardware. Unfortunately, to add the confusion, we also have connectors that can be surprisingly hard to connect and disconnect even under normal circumstances... And everyone has likely experienced in their lives plenty of appliances, self-assembly kits and other objects where some components required application of force to put together, because there's resistance coming from the feature that prevents the object from coming apart together. My rule of thumb is now that if the force seems to be veering into "could break surrounding structure" levels, or if the thing starts making unexpected sounds, then I'm doing it wrong. ... and then I have to put a CPU on a motherboard and the correct way absolutely does involve close-to-breaking forces and squeaky sounds.