On Fri, Mar 02, 2001 at 10:31:12AM -0600, Michael Schwager wrote:
The Samba suite does a poor job of letting the user know what is going on. Expecting a user to provide config files rather than pithy error statements from the program is lousy error reporting. I know exactly how Julia feels-
I agree with you. I would extend the above comment to all software, not just Samba. How many times have we looked at a BSOD and wondered as to what the heck it all meant? How many times have we run an app on UNIX/Linux, and suffered a "segmentation fault". Consumer software has extremely poor error reporting. I won't even try to deny it. The problem I was trying to point out though was that people don't do anything to overcome the limitation of current software. Technology is here to make our lives easier, and it inproves with time. However, it will always have certain limits at a given point in time. When we reach the current limits of technology, then the burden falls on the user. This does not just occur in programming, or even just in computers. This is a fundamental attribute of technology in general.
Again, we have failed the user. It's too easy for computer problems to occur that "are caused by a direct action of a user". We need a paradigm shift. What is wrong with our computers that are making them so difficult to get right? Or so easy to screw up? We are not listening. We are blaming the user.
We as developers should make hardware and software systems that are resiliant and robust. We should design software that makes error reporting easy. We should create software that is usable. Finally, we should try to avoid blaming the user. All that is certain, and unquestionable. Unfortunately, developers cannot anticipate everything a user might do. Systems will fail at some time or another. That is when the user must become involved. - v -- Victor R. Cardona vcardona@home.com "Behold the keyboard of Kahless, the greatest Klingon code warrior that ever lived!"