6 ms·

It's most likely because "get [username]" is the Twitter SMS command to retrieve a list of tweets from [username]: https://support.twitter.com/articles/14020# h

by cfinke 14y ago

It's most likely because "get [username]" is the Twitter SMS command to retrieve a list of tweets from [username]: https://support.twitter.com/articles/14020# https://support.twitter.com/articles/14020# I would wager a guess that you can't tweet "Fav Better" or "Stats Better" either.

treetrouble 14y ago
"Get" is the 48th most commonly used word in US English. This seems like excusably poor engineering not to prefix commands with a character like $. Granted, I'm not a Twitter user so maybe there's a reason?
- courtewing 14y ago
  Being the 48th most commonly used word in US English is a little misleading in this case, though. Verbs such as "get", common as they are, are rarely used to begin a thought.
  - treetrouble 14y ago
    You're right that it wouldn't be the 48th most common word to begin a sentence. Still, it's not uncommon enough to warrant not prefixing it. This goes for "stats" as well...
  - aw3c2 14y ago
    get smart get bend get cake and meet me get lucky: get me some abc get this: These were ones that came to mind in 2 minutes. get it? edit: These lines give my comment a weird tone. Not intended, I just thought of random common examples.
    - thenonsequitur 14y ago
      The parameter count is enforced for each command. For GET, it needs exactly one parameter or it won't be treated as a command. So from your examples above, the longer lines would tweet fine. I agree with treetrouble, however, this was a really bad engineering decision. They should have come up with a tweet prefix to mean "command", some symbol that would not ever start a real tweet.
      - mistercow 14y ago
        Yeah, /get or :get would have been way better commands, and they have precedent in preexisting social media like IRC and MUDs.
        ansgri 14y ago
        They would be very inconvenient to type on the traditional cell phone though.
        thenonsequitur 14y ago
        Well it doesn't have to be a symbol, just something that would not be likely to start a real tweet. Just as an example let's say "q", followed by a space, followed by the command with the appropriate number of parameters, e.g., "q get username". That would allow otherwise-reasonable tweets that are currently being mis-interpreted ("get better" vs. "q get better"). That's just an example. There are other ways around the problem too without making things too inconvenient on a smartphone user. And sure it's possible someone somewhere will want to write a real tweet that says "q get better", but that's far far less likely than someone somewhere wanting to tweet "get better". And the point is that allowing a non-trivial portion of the tweet-space overlap with the command-space is a bad decision. A trivial overlap (like "q get better") would have been a much better decision.
    - jQueryIsAwesome 14y ago
      get out, get in, get in shape, get laid, get up, get down, get http://example.com/file.zip http://example.com/file.zip It really is poor engineering, any non-letter prefix would have been good enough.
      - libria 14y ago
        Well there aren't many convenient choices on a phone. # is used in twitter, * is often used by the carrier. Might have been better to prefix with just "z".
        treetrouble 14y ago
        disabling the use of #get as a hashtag is still better than disabling its use as an english word
        scoot 14y ago
        Twitter existed before the hash-tag - that was a user created meme: http://support.twitter.com/articles/49309-what-are-hashtags-symbols http://support.twitter.com/articles/49309-what-are-hashtags-...
    - rhizome 14y ago
      "Get" in its present-tense for is very difficult to use to start a sentence. It sounds highly idiomatic ("wrong") not to precede it with either a subject ("I get six floppies for a dollar at the thrift store."), or to recede to the infinitive ("To get six floppies for a dollar is a very good deal."). Using a gerund makes it easier, but then you're not dealing with the plain "get" anymore.
      - CodeMage 14y ago
        Get real! ;) I can just imagine promotional tweets gone wrong, e.g.: "Get your tickets to Blind Guardian concert! Only 500 left!"
        jaredsohn 14y ago
        Fortunately, this wouldn't be a problem since there are more than two words
        rhizome 14y ago
        The second is definitely not a sentence, and the first is idiomatic with it's implied subject. :)
        stan_rogers 14y ago
        The second person imperative always implies the subject (at least since we stopped saying thee, and even then the subject and verb were inverted, as it remains in the first person plural imperative). The first sentence in the second example is a complete sentence; only the second is a fragment. If you see an imperative "get" with an apparent subject, it's probably a topic rather than a subject: "Paul, get your boots on and get going!" You are speaking to Paul: "Get your boots on and get going!" You use the topic to designate or call attention; it's not the subject of the sentence.
    - Someone 14y ago
      I didn't think, but let Google surprise me with what it suggested when I typed "get ": get directions get him to the greek get glue get smart get low lyrics get off my internets get rich slowly get away today get to know you questions get fuzzy
- SoftwareMaven 14y ago
  Forcing the typing a command character on a ten-digit phone pad might have caused enough friction to have put Twitter on a very different trajectory early on. Given how long Twitter has had this feature and how little issue it's caused, I would argue it was good product design.
  - hesselink 14y ago
    Perhaps duplicating the first letter would have been a good idea. So 'gget', 'ffav' etc.
  - treetrouble 14y ago
    good design implies that there's some advantage to its use
    - tedunangst 14y ago
      ? I can use a simple command to request tweets on my dumb phone. How is that not an advantage?
      - treetrouble 14y ago
        Is it not still simple with a single character prefix?
        tedunangst 14y ago
        Depends on your userbase. Completely in band normal English command messages probably fits many users' mental model.
nhebb 14y ago
> https://support.twitter.com/articles/14020# https://support.twitter.com/articles/14020# When I saw that I thought, "Wait, there's actually a manual for this thing?". Of course there is, but I wonder how many people have actually read it. <1%?
ChuckMcM 14y ago
Confirmed. And 'please get better' works fine. That being said perhaps people should use g3t better :-). It is an interesting case study on overloading a channel (in-band administration vs out-of-band) and damaging legitimate traffic. A fix would be to prefix the command keys with an introducer :get <username> or :fav <user> but given the bazillion clients and such doing that would be hard. Most famous in-band admin hack has to be the +++ syntax for Hayes modems which flipped the mode bit into 'command' mode serial comms mode. It was even patented.
- praptak 14y ago
  > Most famous in-band admin hack has to be the +++ syntax for Hayes modems which flipped the mode bit into 'command' mode serial comms mode. Unlike this case the +++ hack did not really limit legitimate data you could send on Hayes. As far as I remember it had to be preceded and followed by pauses, so transmitting this comment wouldn't trigger it.
  - ChuckMcM 14y ago
    Yes, the pauses were essential to the patent. As I recall they had to be a specific length and a couple of knock offs worked around the patent by making them slightly shorter.
  - danielweber 14y ago
    From what I recall (and this could very well be apocryphal), the pauses were what was patented. Non-Hayes modems still reacted to +++ but didn't need the pause. So if you could trick their software into sending "+++ATH;ATDT911" you would make them call 911. I'd love confirmation or denial of that patent thing.
    - ChuckMcM 14y ago
      From the wikipedia page (so take it with a wikipedia sized grain of salt :-) "Hayes had patented this concept in 1985 in patent #4,549,302, the Modem With Improved Escape Sequence With Guard Time Mechanism, generally referred to as the "Hayes '302 patent". Hayes licensed the guard time to other manufacturers for $1 a modem – a charge which competitors derisively termed the "modem tax". A number of manufacturers banded together and introduced the Time Independent Escape Sequence, or TIES, but it was not as robust as Heatherington's system and never became very successful."
blueskittle 14y ago
Oh to be this guy: https://twitter.com/#!/better https://twitter.com/#!/better
darkstalker 14y ago
If I don't have twitter SMS enabled, it shouldn't parse SMS commands. It should parse only when sent from the "txt" application (that's how twitter SMS is called)

by cfinke 14y ago

treetrouble 14y ago

"Get" is the 48th most commonly used word in US English. This seems like excusably poor engineering not to prefix commands with a character like $. Granted, I'm not a Twitter user so maybe there's a reason?

courtewing 14y ago
Being the 48th most commonly used word in US English is a little misleading in this case, though. Verbs such as "get", common as they are, are rarely used to begin a thought.
- treetrouble 14y ago
  You're right that it wouldn't be the 48th most common word to begin a sentence. Still, it's not uncommon enough to warrant not prefixing it. This goes for "stats" as well...
- aw3c2 14y ago
  get smart get bend get cake and meet me get lucky: get me some abc get this: These were ones that came to mind in 2 minutes. get it? edit: These lines give my comment a weird tone. Not intended, I just thought of random common examples.
  - thenonsequitur 14y ago
    The parameter count is enforced for each command. For GET, it needs exactly one parameter or it won't be treated as a command. So from your examples above, the longer lines would tweet fine. I agree with treetrouble, however, this was a really bad engineering decision. They should have come up with a tweet prefix to mean "command", some symbol that would not ever start a real tweet.
    - mistercow 14y ago
      Yeah, /get or :get would have been way better commands, and they have precedent in preexisting social media like IRC and MUDs.
      - ansgri 14y ago
        They would be very inconvenient to type on the traditional cell phone though.
        thenonsequitur 14y ago
        Well it doesn't have to be a symbol, just something that would not be likely to start a real tweet. Just as an example let's say "q", followed by a space, followed by the command with the appropriate number of parameters, e.g., "q get username". That would allow otherwise-reasonable tweets that are currently being mis-interpreted ("get better" vs. "q get better"). That's just an example. There are other ways around the problem too without making things too inconvenient on a smartphone user. And sure it's possible someone somewhere will want to write a real tweet that says "q get better", but that's far far less likely than someone somewhere wanting to tweet "get better". And the point is that allowing a non-trivial portion of the tweet-space overlap with the command-space is a bad decision. A trivial overlap (like "q get better") would have been a much better decision.
  - jQueryIsAwesome 14y ago
    get out, get in, get in shape, get laid, get up, get down, get http://example.com/file.zip http://example.com/file.zip It really is poor engineering, any non-letter prefix would have been good enough.
    - libria 14y ago
      Well there aren't many convenient choices on a phone. # is used in twitter, * is often used by the carrier. Might have been better to prefix with just "z".
      - treetrouble 14y ago
        disabling the use of #get as a hashtag is still better than disabling its use as an english word
      - scoot 14y ago
        Twitter existed before the hash-tag - that was a user created meme: http://support.twitter.com/articles/49309-what-are-hashtags-symbols http://support.twitter.com/articles/49309-what-are-hashtags-...
  - rhizome 14y ago
    "Get" in its present-tense for is very difficult to use to start a sentence. It sounds highly idiomatic ("wrong") not to precede it with either a subject ("I get six floppies for a dollar at the thrift store."), or to recede to the infinitive ("To get six floppies for a dollar is a very good deal."). Using a gerund makes it easier, but then you're not dealing with the plain "get" anymore.
    - CodeMage 14y ago
      Get real! ;) I can just imagine promotional tweets gone wrong, e.g.: "Get your tickets to Blind Guardian concert! Only 500 left!"
      - jaredsohn 14y ago
        Fortunately, this wouldn't be a problem since there are more than two words
      - rhizome 14y ago
        The second is definitely not a sentence, and the first is idiomatic with it's implied subject. :)
        stan_rogers 14y ago
        The second person imperative always implies the subject (at least since we stopped saying thee, and even then the subject and verb were inverted, as it remains in the first person plural imperative). The first sentence in the second example is a complete sentence; only the second is a fragment. If you see an imperative "get" with an apparent subject, it's probably a topic rather than a subject: "Paul, get your boots on and get going!" You are speaking to Paul: "Get your boots on and get going!" You use the topic to designate or call attention; it's not the subject of the sentence.
  - Someone 14y ago
    I didn't think, but let Google surprise me with what it suggested when I typed "get ": get directions get him to the greek get glue get smart get low lyrics get off my internets get rich slowly get away today get to know you questions get fuzzy
SoftwareMaven 14y ago
Forcing the typing a command character on a ten-digit phone pad might have caused enough friction to have put Twitter on a very different trajectory early on. Given how long Twitter has had this feature and how little issue it's caused, I would argue it was good product design.
- hesselink 14y ago
  Perhaps duplicating the first letter would have been a good idea. So 'gget', 'ffav' etc.
- treetrouble 14y ago
  good design implies that there's some advantage to its use
  - tedunangst 14y ago
    ? I can use a simple command to request tweets on my dumb phone. How is that not an advantage?
    - treetrouble 14y ago
      Is it not still simple with a single character prefix?
      - tedunangst 14y ago
        Depends on your userbase. Completely in band normal English command messages probably fits many users' mental model.

nhebb 14y ago

> https://support.twitter.com/articles/14020# https://support.twitter.com/articles/14020# When I saw that I thought, "Wait, there's actually a manual for this thing?". Of course there is, but I wonder how many people have actually read it. <1%?

ChuckMcM 14y ago

Confirmed. And 'please get better' works fine. That being said perhaps people should use g3t better :-). It is an interesting case study on overloading a channel (in-band administration vs out-of-band) and damaging legitimate traffic. A fix would be to prefix the command keys with an introducer :get <username> or :fav <user> but given the bazillion clients and such doing that would be hard. Most famous in-band admin hack has to be the +++ syntax for Hayes modems which flipped the mode bit into 'command' mode serial comms mode. It was even patented.

praptak 14y ago
> Most famous in-band admin hack has to be the +++ syntax for Hayes modems which flipped the mode bit into 'command' mode serial comms mode. Unlike this case the +++ hack did not really limit legitimate data you could send on Hayes. As far as I remember it had to be preceded and followed by pauses, so transmitting this comment wouldn't trigger it.
- ChuckMcM 14y ago
  Yes, the pauses were essential to the patent. As I recall they had to be a specific length and a couple of knock offs worked around the patent by making them slightly shorter.
- danielweber 14y ago
  From what I recall (and this could very well be apocryphal), the pauses were what was patented. Non-Hayes modems still reacted to +++ but didn't need the pause. So if you could trick their software into sending "+++ATH;ATDT911" you would make them call 911. I'd love confirmation or denial of that patent thing.
  - ChuckMcM 14y ago
    From the wikipedia page (so take it with a wikipedia sized grain of salt :-) "Hayes had patented this concept in 1985 in patent #4,549,302, the Modem With Improved Escape Sequence With Guard Time Mechanism, generally referred to as the "Hayes '302 patent". Hayes licensed the guard time to other manufacturers for $1 a modem – a charge which competitors derisively termed the "modem tax". A number of manufacturers banded together and introduced the Time Independent Escape Sequence, or TIES, but it was not as robust as Heatherington's system and never became very successful."

blueskittle 14y ago

Oh to be this guy: https://twitter.com/#!/better https://twitter.com/#!/better

darkstalker 14y ago

If I don't have twitter SMS enabled, it shouldn't parse SMS commands. It should parse only when sent from the "txt" application (that's how twitter SMS is called)