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> 6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation" warning light. I
by rossy 5y ago
> 6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation" warning light.
I've always felt that cars are already like this. I don't know much about cars, but I know that there's a wide range of conditions that can cause the "check engine" light to be lit, all of varying degrees of severity. If computers were like cars, instead of an error dialog with a googlable error code, a single "check computer" light would appear on your keyboard, and you'd need a $100 hardware debugger to find out what actually happened.
God forbid your computer suffers a second error while the "check computer" light is on. You'd never know because there's only one light.
- pram 5y agoYes the CEL is worthless, but OBD is very informational and a reader isn't really that expensive. A modern car ECU can tell you things like a specific cylinder misfire, so you can check that spark plug etc. If my motherboard is fucked it's probably just giving some incredibly generic error.
- FDSGSG 5y agoMost people aren't going to google error codes. "Power users" can get an ODB cable for ten bucks if they aren't willing to shell out for a bluetooth reader. The debug information provided by modern cars over ODB tends to be incredibly specific, but rather easy to interpret.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y agoAny more that seems to be the direction computers are going. I recall a time when most error messages, while obtuse, actually did give you a clue as to what went wrong. Nowadays it seems that if anything goes wrong you just get a variation of ":( Software has did a whoopsie! Our bad. Please try again". Even logs, where they exist, often have nothing useful in them. It makes it much more maddening to troubleshoot everything.