I had to give up when the first example of a "bug" that the author could see, which others are blind to, was search results.
"In some cases, people sent me their actual search results. In every such case, the search results did not contain a good result that I could see"
Software that does not meet expectations, especially in a field like search, which is basically a long running war between SEO and search engines, is not a 'bug'. That's like saying there is 'bug blindness' in the publishing industry because when I pick up a random book, it sucks, even though others think it's fine. Sure, maybe something is wrong, could even be improved, but lets save the word 'bug' for something more specific.
This is rather interesting to read. But it reinforces something I've seen in my career. The majority of users of software I've helped build, they use it in ways that are mind bending to me. Workflows I would never think of, that somehow do what they need.
The second one is most software contains bugs. Users that expect to get things done simply choose workflows to avoid the worst consequence of those bugs very quickly.
> The second one is most software contains bugs. Users that expect to get things done simply choose workflows to avoid the worst consequence of those bugs very quickly.
I feel like a substantial source of everyday irritation are bugs like this in bad software. It’s frustrating that devs just don’t care.
You could make software that doesn’t require your users to work around its shortcomings.
Blackboard is definitely a really strong contender for the worst software I've ever had to use. When I was in uni, I went so far as to write an alternative that scraped the content from blackboard and published it on a site that I could actually browse sensibly.
They were paying exorbitant amounts of money for the license too.
Applications like Blackboard exist because of the genre of "Checkboxware."
A University must comply with Laws and Regulations X, Y, Z, P, D and Q and a host of other regulations the University never heard of and Blackboard went through the process to "comply" with those checkboxes. So, if you deploy Blackboard, you tick all the checkboxes automatically.
The fact that Blackboard was a garbage content management system and a terrible grade recording system was irrelevant--because the "better" systems wouldn't check the boxes.
(I say this as someone who, as a lecturer, had to manage the account logins, mailing list, and Subversion source control system for an entire class. I only ever put grades that needed to be "secure" into Blackboard. I did all that because I HATED Blackboard that badly, but it was a LOT of work. And I probably wouldn't have passed any significant security audit; although my accessibility ratings should have been excellent since everything was plain text and plain HTML)
I had this same discussion on another HN thread a while back. I prefer lines to run as long as possible; I find it difficult/distracting to move my eyes to the beginning of the next line every few seconds. I'm sure I'm in the minority, but I have to believe I'm not the only one out there who feels this way.
Rather than having the website author wrap lines at a width that works for the average user or use case (which may only be optimum for a percentage of users or use cases, which may not include me), the user can simply make their browser whatever width they prefer the lines to wrap at. This way, everybody gets to choose what works for them.
For what it’s worth, the author would not consider this a bug. He does it (as I understand) because he distrusts the research on the impact of line length on readability.
"I easily observe hundreds to thousands of bugs per week"
which should be rewritten as
"I easily observe hundreds to thousands of things that I consider to be bugs per week"
which is to say that the "bug" is in the eye of the beholder. It seems the author stretches the definition of "bug" to include cases where something functions, but in a manner that is open to improvement or not to his taste.
My absolute favorite bug is the one where the “cancel your Amazon Music subscription” is seemingly the only one of what must be tens of thousands of UI elements in the Amazon app that simply loads a blank white screen no matter what.
> At times, I've tried to see if I can get a job somewhere where I just fix quality issues all day. This has never panned out, due to some combination of this not being a very high priority and it also not being a normal role that companies have a role for.
I'm pretty sure dedicated QA roles are a thing at many companies.
I choose tools I use, configure them, report bugs, and occasionally contribute fixes. But when I can't, I work around them, yet never get used to the workaround.
"Habitual mitigation" does not happen in me, and it's partly intentional.
I have created bad software in the past, but when I saw how people work with it, I could not be proud. Learned to look at software like a user, and don't want to unlearn that.
I believe (or maybe I hope) software will be democratized and people will start to demand good software.
I’m really anal about the Quality of my own software, and tend to be hard on others’ software (doesn’t make me too popular).
> I've had multiple jobs where directors/VPs/execs/etc. sometimes ask me to evaluate something when they want an actual opinion from someone who is relatively likely to notice issues (and fix them or drive fixes for them if necessary).
I’ve had the experience where I need to be asked, and even then, if my opinion isn’t “ist güt,” it’s often ignored.
When someone makes a proposal, I tend to immediately see the potential issues, and used to point them out, and suggest workarounds or mitigation strategies, without being asked.
Not the happy path. I get accused of being “negative,” my suggestion is shitcanned, and I’m shunned.
I’ve learned to just keep my mouth shut, and if the situation calls for it, start quietly preparing for when the wheels fall off.
I have also learned to never say “I told you so,” as that is a petty and vindictive statement. Doesn’t help at all.
"In some cases, people sent me their actual search results. In every such case, the search results did not contain a good result that I could see"
Software that does not meet expectations, especially in a field like search, which is basically a long running war between SEO and search engines, is not a 'bug'. That's like saying there is 'bug blindness' in the publishing industry because when I pick up a random book, it sucks, even though others think it's fine. Sure, maybe something is wrong, could even be improved, but lets save the word 'bug' for something more specific.
The second one is most software contains bugs. Users that expect to get things done simply choose workflows to avoid the worst consequence of those bugs very quickly.
I feel like a substantial source of everyday irritation are bugs like this in bad software. It’s frustrating that devs just don’t care.
You could make software that doesn’t require your users to work around its shortcomings.
They were paying exorbitant amounts of money for the license too.
A University must comply with Laws and Regulations X, Y, Z, P, D and Q and a host of other regulations the University never heard of and Blackboard went through the process to "comply" with those checkboxes. So, if you deploy Blackboard, you tick all the checkboxes automatically.
The fact that Blackboard was a garbage content management system and a terrible grade recording system was irrelevant--because the "better" systems wouldn't check the boxes.
(I say this as someone who, as a lecturer, had to manage the account logins, mailing list, and Subversion source control system for an entire class. I only ever put grades that needed to be "secure" into Blackboard. I did all that because I HATED Blackboard that badly, but it was a LOT of work. And I probably wouldn't have passed any significant security audit; although my accessibility ratings should have been excellent since everything was plain text and plain HTML)
Rather than having the website author wrap lines at a width that works for the average user or use case (which may only be optimum for a percentage of users or use cases, which may not include me), the user can simply make their browser whatever width they prefer the lines to wrap at. This way, everybody gets to choose what works for them.
"I easily observe hundreds to thousands of bugs per week"
which should be rewritten as
"I easily observe hundreds to thousands of things that I consider to be bugs per week"
which is to say that the "bug" is in the eye of the beholder. It seems the author stretches the definition of "bug" to include cases where something functions, but in a manner that is open to improvement or not to his taste.
`<link rel="icon" href="data:;base64,=">`
What are the odds!
I'm pretty sure dedicated QA roles are a thing at many companies.
I choose tools I use, configure them, report bugs, and occasionally contribute fixes. But when I can't, I work around them, yet never get used to the workaround.
"Habitual mitigation" does not happen in me, and it's partly intentional.
I have created bad software in the past, but when I saw how people work with it, I could not be proud. Learned to look at software like a user, and don't want to unlearn that.
I believe (or maybe I hope) software will be democratized and people will start to demand good software.
> I've had multiple jobs where directors/VPs/execs/etc. sometimes ask me to evaluate something when they want an actual opinion from someone who is relatively likely to notice issues (and fix them or drive fixes for them if necessary).
I’ve had the experience where I need to be asked, and even then, if my opinion isn’t “ist güt,” it’s often ignored.
When someone makes a proposal, I tend to immediately see the potential issues, and used to point them out, and suggest workarounds or mitigation strategies, without being asked.
Not the happy path. I get accused of being “negative,” my suggestion is shitcanned, and I’m shunned.
I’ve learned to just keep my mouth shut, and if the situation calls for it, start quietly preparing for when the wheels fall off.
I have also learned to never say “I told you so,” as that is a petty and vindictive statement. Doesn’t help at all.