9 ms·

The curious case of the disappearing Polish S (2015)

159 points by dsr12 5y ago

jan_Inkepa 5y ago
That's a really well-written blogpost! I was expecting it to be much more surface-level (something to do with character codes - still possibly interesting!) but it had new info for me on several levels (the background of the bug, and the personal history stuff didn't feel too fillery to me).
- Bluecobra 5y ago
  I’m glad that they actually fixed the issue instead of just deciding to use a workaround, like copy/paste Ś from another application.
karatinversion 5y ago
Taking “5 why’s” to a whole new level!
thenewwazoo 5y ago
e.metaKey || (e.ctrlKey && !e.altKey) seems to me like an exceptionally strange choice. Why not an exclusive-or? The thing they want to avoid is a false-positive on both being pressed, so test for that directly.
- LordDragonfang 5y ago
  e.metaKey is the `⌘Command` key on Mac (used for the save shortcut), an entirely different key than the ones involved in the bug. Also, Javascript doesn't have a logical xor operator, so trying to do that would potentially reduce readability.
  - joshuaissac 5y ago
    > Javascript doesn't have a logical xor operator x != y
    - dhosek 5y ago
      Although with the looseness around booleans in JS, I'd imagine that you might need to do something more like `(x==true) != (y==true)`
    - LordDragonfang 5y ago
      A common hack, and that's where the "potentially reduce readability" caveat comes in.
  - smlckz 5y ago
    > Also, Javascript doesn't have a logical xor operator, so trying to do that would potentially reduce readability. I also didn't know about any operator to logically xor two boolean variables (thought about (ab)using JavaScript's implicit type conversion mechanisms: `x ^ y`), and then I learnt that `!=` works fine as a logical xor for booleans. Tada! I don't know how much readability is reduced by this.
- zamadatix 5y ago
  Wouldn't using XOR trigger a save on Alt + S? Unless I'm missing something with why the meta portion should have the XOR here instead.
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    The only place XOR could be used is to replace the OR. As you say, replacing the AND NOT with an XOR would supress Alt + s. Even replacing the OR with XOR is not obviously an improvement as it is not clear that we know what the correct behavior would be in the edge case where a keyboard event is emitted with both the control and command flags set.
SSLy 5y ago
Meanwhile Cisco Webex still exhibits this bug
dang 5y ago
Discussed at the time: The curious case of disappearing Polish S - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8986920 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8986920 - Feb 2015 (117 comments)
sombremesa 5y ago
This post really exemplifies what HN is today: People oohing and aahing on a blog post that makes a mountain out of a molehill and ultimately complicates the issue rather than addressing it elegantly. I understand I'm not really bringing anything to the conversation by saying this, but can we really not do any better than this? On the other hand, posts like this make me really glad I'm leaving software for good, what with the industry just amounting to smelling one's own farts now.
- WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
  But it’s got photos of some fine keyboards made by IBM and stuff!
- atuladhar 5y ago
  Genuinely curious - in your mind, what would be "addressing it elegantly" in this case?
tomaszs 5y ago
An interesting fact for non Polish speaking readers: for non-official writing we often don't use diacritic characters at all. It makes writing faster. With the raise of spell checkers it fades out, but still, if you write without diacritics often you will be well understood. Second interesting fact: it is very popular for software and online apps, especially not developed in Europe to ignore diacritics. Not only polish ones, but also french, german etc. You get weird characters instead or can not write properly altogether. I hope the article will put a highlight on the issue.
- Tade0 5y ago
  I've noticed that I automatically lose some respect towards a person if I find that they don't use diacritics in their writing. Especially in a professional setting.
  - mirekrusin 5y ago
    1. łaskę mi robisz 2. laske mi robisz -- 1. you are (not really, pejorative) doing me a favor 2. you are doing me a blowjob ...must be one of better ones.
- 988747 5y ago
  Sure, but sometimes leaving out Polish diacritics makes the whole sentence ambiguous, or at the very least harder to read. I personally despise people doing that. More to the article's point: there were countless times where I accidentaly sent unfinished email by trying to type "ś".
- crazygringo 5y ago
  I feel like that's pretty true worldwide for languages with diacritics, at least for all the Latin-script languages I'm familiar with. It's really no different from people in English shortening "you" to "u" in texting as well, or "lol". Everybody saves keystrokes wherever they can.
  - danijelb 5y ago
hawski 5y ago
I wonder if it is a similar reason why currently on MS Teams I can't type the letter ń.
rkangel 5y ago
Surely this is down to one key error (pun intended) - Medium deciding to override a standard browser shortcut 'for the good of their users'. If they needed a manual save function then I might understand it, but they tried to be clever and made things worse in a subtle way.
ajuc 5y ago
My favorite Polish language-related computer problems: 1. windows installing both programmers' and typists' Polish keyboard layouts by default + shortcut to change between them (I think it was alt+shift+space or even alt+space ?). Most people had no idea there even are 2 layouts and if they randomly pressed this shortcut and logged out - the next time they tried to log in - Z and Y are switched and if they had Z or Y in their password - they can't log in. This one caused millions of support calls. 2. corporate computers with English and Polish layout installed - if you happen to have layout switched to English and try to write an email in outlook - you will likely start with "cześć" ("hi") and when you press alt+s for "ś" it will send the "cze" as the full email. "cze" is very casual "hi" like writing a business email: "yo". 3. same as above but in eclipse with some version control plugins alt+s committed the code. Especially frustrating in cvs/svn. 4. python2 code often breaks if you have Polish letters embedded in code as string literals. It depends on the default system coding page vs default python coding page and other stuff, for some reason it's not utf-8 by default in python2. The solution is to use python3 or mess up with the default settings.
- xfthgq5 5y ago
  - Installing KeePass used to silently disable "ą" key (AltGr+A hotkey). "KeePass breaks system of every Polish user immediately after being installed." https://sourceforge.net/p/keepass/discussion/329220/thread/db78f1c9/ https://sourceforge.net/p/keepass/discussion/329220/thread/d... A warning was added later.
Arathorn 5y ago
This is a really common failure mode - people forget to explicitly assert that the other modifiers are off when checking for a modifier being on. I had to go through and fix all the ones in matrix-react-sdk (element web) a few years ago: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk/pull/825/files https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk/pull/825/file...

159 points by dsr12 5y ago

That's a really well-written blogpost! I was expecting it to be much more surface-level (something to do with character codes - still possibly interesting!) but it had new info for me on several levels (the background of the bug, and the personal history stuff didn't feel too fillery to me).

Bluecobra 5y ago
I’m glad that they actually fixed the issue instead of just deciding to use a workaround, like copy/paste Ś from another application.

karatinversion 5y ago

Taking “5 why’s” to a whole new level!

thenewwazoo 5y ago

e.metaKey || (e.ctrlKey && !e.altKey) seems to me like an exceptionally strange choice. Why not an exclusive-or? The thing they want to avoid is a false-positive on both being pressed, so test for that directly.

LordDragonfang 5y ago
e.metaKey is the `⌘Command` key on Mac (used for the save shortcut), an entirely different key than the ones involved in the bug. Also, Javascript doesn't have a logical xor operator, so trying to do that would potentially reduce readability.
- joshuaissac 5y ago
  > Javascript doesn't have a logical xor operator x != y
  - dhosek 5y ago
    Although with the looseness around booleans in JS, I'd imagine that you might need to do something more like `(x==true) != (y==true)`
  - LordDragonfang 5y ago
    A common hack, and that's where the "potentially reduce readability" caveat comes in.
- smlckz 5y ago
  > Also, Javascript doesn't have a logical xor operator, so trying to do that would potentially reduce readability. I also didn't know about any operator to logically xor two boolean variables (thought about (ab)using JavaScript's implicit type conversion mechanisms: `x ^ y`), and then I learnt that `!=` works fine as a logical xor for booleans. Tada! I don't know how much readability is reduced by this.
zamadatix 5y ago
Wouldn't using XOR trigger a save on Alt + S? Unless I'm missing something with why the meta portion should have the XOR here instead.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  The only place XOR could be used is to replace the OR. As you say, replacing the AND NOT with an XOR would supress Alt + s. Even replacing the OR with XOR is not obviously an improvement as it is not clear that we know what the correct behavior would be in the edge case where a keyboard event is emitted with both the control and command flags set.

SSLy 5y ago

Meanwhile Cisco Webex still exhibits this bug

dang 5y ago

Discussed at the time: The curious case of disappearing Polish S - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8986920 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8986920 - Feb 2015 (117 comments)

sombremesa 5y ago

This post really exemplifies what HN is today: People oohing and aahing on a blog post that makes a mountain out of a molehill and ultimately complicates the issue rather than addressing it elegantly. I understand I'm not really bringing anything to the conversation by saying this, but can we really not do any better than this? On the other hand, posts like this make me really glad I'm leaving software for good, what with the industry just amounting to smelling one's own farts now.

WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
But it’s got photos of some fine keyboards made by IBM and stuff!
atuladhar 5y ago
Genuinely curious - in your mind, what would be "addressing it elegantly" in this case?

tomaszs 5y ago

An interesting fact for non Polish speaking readers: for non-official writing we often don't use diacritic characters at all. It makes writing faster. With the raise of spell checkers it fades out, but still, if you write without diacritics often you will be well understood. Second interesting fact: it is very popular for software and online apps, especially not developed in Europe to ignore diacritics. Not only polish ones, but also french, german etc. You get weird characters instead or can not write properly altogether. I hope the article will put a highlight on the issue.

Tade0 5y ago
I've noticed that I automatically lose some respect towards a person if I find that they don't use diacritics in their writing. Especially in a professional setting.
- mirekrusin 5y ago
  1. łaskę mi robisz 2. laske mi robisz -- 1. you are (not really, pejorative) doing me a favor 2. you are doing me a blowjob ...must be one of better ones.
988747 5y ago
Sure, but sometimes leaving out Polish diacritics makes the whole sentence ambiguous, or at the very least harder to read. I personally despise people doing that. More to the article's point: there were countless times where I accidentaly sent unfinished email by trying to type "ś".
crazygringo 5y ago
I feel like that's pretty true worldwide for languages with diacritics, at least for all the Latin-script languages I'm familiar with. It's really no different from people in English shortening "you" to "u" in texting as well, or "lol". Everybody saves keystrokes wherever they can.
- danijelb 5y ago

hawski 5y ago

I wonder if it is a similar reason why currently on MS Teams I can't type the letter ń.

rkangel 5y ago

Surely this is down to one key error (pun intended) - Medium deciding to override a standard browser shortcut 'for the good of their users'. If they needed a manual save function then I might understand it, but they tried to be clever and made things worse in a subtle way.

ajuc 5y ago

My favorite Polish language-related computer problems: 1. windows installing both programmers' and typists' Polish keyboard layouts by default + shortcut to change between them (I think it was alt+shift+space or even alt+space ?). Most people had no idea there even are 2 layouts and if they randomly pressed this shortcut and logged out - the next time they tried to log in - Z and Y are switched and if they had Z or Y in their password - they can't log in. This one caused millions of support calls. 2. corporate computers with English and Polish layout installed - if you happen to have layout switched to English and try to write an email in outlook - you will likely start with "cześć" ("hi") and when you press alt+s for "ś" it will send the "cze" as the full email. "cze" is very casual "hi" like writing a business email: "yo". 3. same as above but in eclipse with some version control plugins alt+s committed the code. Especially frustrating in cvs/svn. 4. python2 code often breaks if you have Polish letters embedded in code as string literals. It depends on the default system coding page vs default python coding page and other stuff, for some reason it's not utf-8 by default in python2. The solution is to use python3 or mess up with the default settings.

xfthgq5 5y ago
- Installing KeePass used to silently disable "ą" key (AltGr+A hotkey). "KeePass breaks system of every Polish user immediately after being installed." https://sourceforge.net/p/keepass/discussion/329220/thread/db78f1c9/ https://sourceforge.net/p/keepass/discussion/329220/thread/d... A warning was added later.

Arathorn 5y ago

This is a really common failure mode - people forget to explicitly assert that the other modifiers are off when checking for a modifier being on. I had to go through and fix all the ones in matrix-react-sdk (element web) a few years ago: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk/pull/825/files https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk/pull/825/file...