6 ms·

But GitHub does require you to type the org and repo name. The linked blog post includes a screenshot of it: https://httpie.io/_next/image?url=%2FBlog%2Fstardu

by js2 3y ago

But GitHub does require you to type the org and repo name. The linked blog post includes a screenshot of it: https://httpie.io/_next/image?url=%2FBlog%2Fstardust%2Fconfirm-B3X7QRNG.jpg&w=1200&q=95 https://httpie.io/_next/image?url=%2FBlog%2Fstardust%2Fconfi... The developer was on automatic because he had just been working with another repo and the two repo names were similar, so the type to confirm didn't prevent the mistake. The blog post suggests other changes GitHub could make.

lamontcg 3y ago
"If you make something idiot-proof, someone will just make a better idiot." I think there's a literal psychological disease in American culture, where if you fuck up, then someone else was to blame for not preventing you from doing it. I think we just need less of that (not more of that) to force people to understand that they need to be considering the effects of their actions before they do them.
- js2 3y ago
  Accident investigations intentionally do not apply blame. Humans are fallible. We make mistakes. If one human makes a mistake, others will too. The author of the httpie blog post does not apply blame. In fact, he goes out of his way to explain his error, then suggests changes that would have prevented his mistake, to hopefully save others from the same mistake. So we can blame humans as you seem to want to do, or we can accept human behavior and design our systems to be more forgiving. cdelsolar at the top of this thread wrote that "I get emails, every single day" and that "It literally drives me crazy." So what should cdelsolar do? Blame all the humans accidentally deleting their accounts, or find a way to design around it? I know which approach I would take. Let me suggest this book btw: https://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Understanding-Human-Error/dp/1472439058 https://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Understanding-Human-Error...
  - lamontcg 3y ago
    > Accident investigations intentionally do not apply blame. Yeah they do and pilot error is very common: > During 2004 in the United States, pilot error was listed as the primary cause of 78.6% of fatal general aviation accidents, and as the primary cause of 75.5% of general aviation accidents overall.[27] For scheduled air transport, pilot error typically accounts for just over half of worldwide accidents with a known cause They can try to address that through training, certification, recertification and updates to manuals and checklists, but at some point some level of human failure is going to be inevitable. And with UI/UX like this there isn't much ability to do that, since people don't get certified on using GitHub. Meanwhile, it is going to be very difficult to break people who are stuck on "autopilot" and just aren't reading anything out of it vi any kinds of dialogs or messages. Gonna delete 8,000,000 stars on this project? Good. Oh wait. Whoops. I'd like to see if the change to the UX to show that information has made any actual measurable impact on the accidental deletion incidents that GH sees. There isn't any good substitute for just learning early that if you are going to delete something you need to stop, think, read and wait a second before hitting that button. Trying to fashion a world where people can navigate it successfully on completely thoughtless autopilot all the time isn't possible. Also, that blog post is irritating because "Lesson #1" should have been for the author to STOP AND THINK when deleting or presented with a scary modal dialog box that actions were going to be permanent. My reading of that blog post is that the author didn't actually accept any blame, didn't see any need to change any of their behavior and shifted it all onto GH. It is equivalent to a non-apology-apology.
    - js2 3y ago
      Later on that same wiki page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot_error https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot_error): Modern accident investigators avoid the words "pilot error", as the scope of their work is to determine the cause of an accident, rather than to apportion blame. And from the NTSB: The NTSB does not assign fault or blame for an accident or incident; rather, NTSB investigations are factfinding proceedings with no adverse parties and are not conducted for the purpose of determining the rights, liabilities, or blame of any person or entity." https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/process/Pages/investigativehearings.aspx https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/process/Pages/investigat... > should have been for the author to STOP AND THINK when deleting I've been doing system administration and programming since the early 90s. One of the first things I learned from a grey beard at the time was after typing a destructive command, take my hands away from the keyboard and read back what I just typed before pressing enter. It was a great lesson and has saved me from a lot of mistakes. Guess what? I still occasionally make mistakes. Because I'm human. So another thing I learned was to make any shells on production systems be visually distinct. All my production machines have a red shell prompt. That's saved me from even more mistakes than reading back commands. And it protects more than just me, but anyone else who logs into those machines. (Yes, ideally, no one is ever logging into a production machine.) The problem with "STOP AND THINK" is that it requires every person to learn that lesson individually. Meanwhile, if you accept that human behavior is what it is and design around it, you can save many people from mistakes in the first place. There's a saying: do you want to be right or do you want to win? Personally, I want to win (i.e. be effective). Winning means accepting humans are fallible and doing my best to design systems for them instead of holding them at fault in cases where a better design would have prevented the mistake.
- WeylandYutani 3y ago
  All those stories about people suing for a million dollar settlement probably doesn't help. And the entire unscrupulous lawyer class that enables it (seriously don't they have a bar association in America?!).
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
  > I think there's a literal psychological disease To slightly validate this thought for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disor.... I've personally known people who strongly exhibit these symptoms. There is no accountability (and no "good faith" arguments) for such people and I notice a seemingly similar pattern of thought in the linked blog post. Some excerpts which seem to intentionally shift blame: > It’s a peculiarity of GitHub, to put it mildly, that making a repo private permanently deletes all watchers and stars. > GitHub’s conceptual model treats users and organizations as very similar entities when it comes to profiles and repos. > The problem is that the box looks exactly the same for repos with no commits and stars and for repos with a decade-long history and 55k stargazers and watchers. I could go on. Anyway, just trying to offer another voice in agreement. Also, that particular call-out of "psychological disease" is especially notable to me for personal reasons. (Not that I'm intending to diagnose this specific blogger; just that the tone of the blog post indeed seems to be blame-shifting, which is a characteristic behavior of those with NPD.)
  - lamontcg 3y ago
    Yep, I know where you're coming from. There's a general undercurrent of narcissism across our whole society, even if people aren't formally diagnosable.
- ectospheno 3y ago
  A human can literally drive all the way home from work and not remember doing so. You are surprised such an animal can fill out a text field and click some buttons?
Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago
I'm a professional developer and all that, I recently accidentally formatted my phone (and screamed to my stupidity). In twrp there is a "wipe" section that's used to well, wipe the phone, or optionally wipe the cache. I went in sure it was to wipe the cache, it clearly stated it would erase stuff, i still did. Sometimes the brain just farts.

by js2 3y ago

lamontcg 3y ago

"If you make something idiot-proof, someone will just make a better idiot." I think there's a literal psychological disease in American culture, where if you fuck up, then someone else was to blame for not preventing you from doing it. I think we just need less of that (not more of that) to force people to understand that they need to be considering the effects of their actions before they do them.

js2 3y ago
Accident investigations intentionally do not apply blame. Humans are fallible. We make mistakes. If one human makes a mistake, others will too. The author of the httpie blog post does not apply blame. In fact, he goes out of his way to explain his error, then suggests changes that would have prevented his mistake, to hopefully save others from the same mistake. So we can blame humans as you seem to want to do, or we can accept human behavior and design our systems to be more forgiving. cdelsolar at the top of this thread wrote that "I get emails, every single day" and that "It literally drives me crazy." So what should cdelsolar do? Blame all the humans accidentally deleting their accounts, or find a way to design around it? I know which approach I would take. Let me suggest this book btw: https://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Understanding-Human-Error/dp/1472439058 https://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Understanding-Human-Error...
- lamontcg 3y ago
  > Accident investigations intentionally do not apply blame. Yeah they do and pilot error is very common: > During 2004 in the United States, pilot error was listed as the primary cause of 78.6% of fatal general aviation accidents, and as the primary cause of 75.5% of general aviation accidents overall.[27] For scheduled air transport, pilot error typically accounts for just over half of worldwide accidents with a known cause They can try to address that through training, certification, recertification and updates to manuals and checklists, but at some point some level of human failure is going to be inevitable. And with UI/UX like this there isn't much ability to do that, since people don't get certified on using GitHub. Meanwhile, it is going to be very difficult to break people who are stuck on "autopilot" and just aren't reading anything out of it vi any kinds of dialogs or messages. Gonna delete 8,000,000 stars on this project? Good. Oh wait. Whoops. I'd like to see if the change to the UX to show that information has made any actual measurable impact on the accidental deletion incidents that GH sees. There isn't any good substitute for just learning early that if you are going to delete something you need to stop, think, read and wait a second before hitting that button. Trying to fashion a world where people can navigate it successfully on completely thoughtless autopilot all the time isn't possible. Also, that blog post is irritating because "Lesson #1" should have been for the author to STOP AND THINK when deleting or presented with a scary modal dialog box that actions were going to be permanent. My reading of that blog post is that the author didn't actually accept any blame, didn't see any need to change any of their behavior and shifted it all onto GH. It is equivalent to a non-apology-apology.
  - js2 3y ago
    Later on that same wiki page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot_error https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot_error): Modern accident investigators avoid the words "pilot error", as the scope of their work is to determine the cause of an accident, rather than to apportion blame. And from the NTSB: The NTSB does not assign fault or blame for an accident or incident; rather, NTSB investigations are factfinding proceedings with no adverse parties and are not conducted for the purpose of determining the rights, liabilities, or blame of any person or entity." https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/process/Pages/investigativehearings.aspx https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/process/Pages/investigat... > should have been for the author to STOP AND THINK when deleting I've been doing system administration and programming since the early 90s. One of the first things I learned from a grey beard at the time was after typing a destructive command, take my hands away from the keyboard and read back what I just typed before pressing enter. It was a great lesson and has saved me from a lot of mistakes. Guess what? I still occasionally make mistakes. Because I'm human. So another thing I learned was to make any shells on production systems be visually distinct. All my production machines have a red shell prompt. That's saved me from even more mistakes than reading back commands. And it protects more than just me, but anyone else who logs into those machines. (Yes, ideally, no one is ever logging into a production machine.) The problem with "STOP AND THINK" is that it requires every person to learn that lesson individually. Meanwhile, if you accept that human behavior is what it is and design around it, you can save many people from mistakes in the first place. There's a saying: do you want to be right or do you want to win? Personally, I want to win (i.e. be effective). Winning means accepting humans are fallible and doing my best to design systems for them instead of holding them at fault in cases where a better design would have prevented the mistake.
WeylandYutani 3y ago
All those stories about people suing for a million dollar settlement probably doesn't help. And the entire unscrupulous lawyer class that enables it (seriously don't they have a bar association in America?!).
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
> I think there's a literal psychological disease To slightly validate this thought for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disor.... I've personally known people who strongly exhibit these symptoms. There is no accountability (and no "good faith" arguments) for such people and I notice a seemingly similar pattern of thought in the linked blog post. Some excerpts which seem to intentionally shift blame: > It’s a peculiarity of GitHub, to put it mildly, that making a repo private permanently deletes all watchers and stars. > GitHub’s conceptual model treats users and organizations as very similar entities when it comes to profiles and repos. > The problem is that the box looks exactly the same for repos with no commits and stars and for repos with a decade-long history and 55k stargazers and watchers. I could go on. Anyway, just trying to offer another voice in agreement. Also, that particular call-out of "psychological disease" is especially notable to me for personal reasons. (Not that I'm intending to diagnose this specific blogger; just that the tone of the blog post indeed seems to be blame-shifting, which is a characteristic behavior of those with NPD.)
- lamontcg 3y ago
  Yep, I know where you're coming from. There's a general undercurrent of narcissism across our whole society, even if people aren't formally diagnosable.
ectospheno 3y ago
A human can literally drive all the way home from work and not remember doing so. You are surprised such an animal can fill out a text field and click some buttons?

Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago

I'm a professional developer and all that, I recently accidentally formatted my phone (and screamed to my stupidity). In twrp there is a "wipe" section that's used to well, wipe the phone, or optionally wipe the cache. I went in sure it was to wipe the cache, it clearly stated it would erase stuff, i still did. Sometimes the brain just farts.