You could have added more juicy bits just because it's Valentine's Day and you love your users, you short-sighted incrementalist curmudgeon you.v2209 beta
Moderators: fgagnon, nikos, Site Mods
In Ireland, when girls are referred to as "Common" it's not a compliment, and sits just the wrong side of plain. Personally I find that style annoying at best, middling common, and faintly smelling of low-class .NET controls myself. Tree'd settings are never as helpful as their designers originally hoped - but then, if Achilles grows up to be a bin-man, you'll probably still love him anyway (unless he turns out to be the evil kind of bin-man where the mafia controls all the routes and people get dung dumped on their lawns if they don't pay up in time).
But, others may disagree (about the Style - not so much the dung, though they are related).
But, others may disagree (about the Style - not so much the dung, though they are related).
I'll grant you that, finding a setting is easier, as long as the user knows what they're looking for and what nomenclature a natural Greek speaker may have indexed with.
However, needs be that I point out that you most certainly have a pile a few years old of worthy user-requests some of which may or may not have merit, but all of which deserve your development time significantly more than some silly settings box that no one has complained about or made requests for.
One should not lose sight of the basic truths, just for the sake of a few shiny trinkets. (And don't think that it escaped anyone's notice that messing with the settings GUI wouldn't be a "safe" thing to do, which is why that shiny-shite appeals to you - it "looks" like you're actually adding development, but in reality it's just a coat of paint that you're coasting on. If you turn [even more] conservative now in your middle-age, the future is lost!)
However, needs be that I point out that you most certainly have a pile a few years old of worthy user-requests some of which may or may not have merit, but all of which deserve your development time significantly more than some silly settings box that no one has complained about or made requests for.
One should not lose sight of the basic truths, just for the sake of a few shiny trinkets. (And don't think that it escaped anyone's notice that messing with the settings GUI wouldn't be a "safe" thing to do, which is why that shiny-shite appeals to you - it "looks" like you're actually adding development, but in reality it's just a coat of paint that you're coasting on. If you turn [even more] conservative now in your middle-age, the future is lost!)
I support this settings box, if for nothing else, because it has some sort of 'option search' feature :=)nikos wrote:the advantage i can think of in this particular case is that you can use the filter box (see the pic) to find a setting you need!
However, it doesn't seem worth re-developing all your existing options to use the new UI. If you think it won't be all too much effort, then that's your call!
-Thracx
"Man wants to know, and when he ceases to do so, he is no longer a man."
-Fridtjof Nansen
"Man wants to know, and when he ceases to do so, he is no longer a man."
-Fridtjof Nansen
A "reproducible error" is the hobgoblin of a weak mind. A REAL programmer does not need the crutch of a reproducible error to debug their software. A REAL programmer can look at the symptom (reported behavior) and deduce the possible causes - just by thinking about the way their code works.
While a reproducible error is nice to have, it should not be a requirement. I'm just sayin. :D
While a reproducible error is nice to have, it should not be a requirement. I'm just sayin. :D
Real programmers also don't waste too much time chasing the ignis fatuus of every minor 3rd-party complaint, especially considering the diseased ecosystem we live in. Reproducible errors take not only the abstraction out of it, but also remove the question of users who know not the indecipherable technocratic dream they inhabit.
Thus making the programmer both innocent and guilty at the same time - a state which a certain pet of Schrödinger's would appreciate - yet neither wholly blameless nor wholly culpable either - a distinction the cat never had to concern itself with. That is indeed a hobgoblin, but it's in no way a weakness.
Just sayin'.
Thus making the programmer both innocent and guilty at the same time - a state which a certain pet of Schrödinger's would appreciate - yet neither wholly blameless nor wholly culpable either - a distinction the cat never had to concern itself with. That is indeed a hobgoblin, but it's in no way a weakness.
Just sayin'.
A reproducible error is that which can often be fixed cost effectively, and any REAL programmer should know to spend their time efficiently and effectively - there are always more features to develop and known bugs to fix. A strong majority of the time, non-reproducible errors are errors between the keyboard and chair, which sadly can't usually be fixed by us developers. 'just sayingdrac wrote:A "reproducible error" is the hobgoblin of a weak mind. A REAL programmer does not need the crutch of a reproducible error to debug their software...While a reproducible error is nice to have, it should not be a requirement. I'm just sayin. :D
While wearing my user hat, I can definitely agree that it's very, very frustrating when you see what appears to be a clear bug, but aren't quite able to get to happen on demand.* But even then, it often still does come down to being user error or confusion. And regardless, we have to understand that the developers can't easily determine which 5% of the non-reproducible errors are real - that's an inefficient wild goose chase!
And so reproducibility isn't a requirement, but it is needed by developers (and testers) when the user wants the problem to get attention and be fixed in a timely fashion.
(And it's even more frustrating when you see bugs during development that you can't reproduce!)
-Thracx
"Man wants to know, and when he ceases to do so, he is no longer a man."
-Fridtjof Nansen
"Man wants to know, and when he ceases to do so, he is no longer a man."
-Fridtjof Nansen
So I guess a temper tantrum just won't cut it then, huh? Pity... they are fun though... why would God invent an urge that's fun but ineffective? Wait... don't answer that...Thracx wrote:...when the user wants the problem to get attention and be fixed in a timely fashion
I appreciate the economic implications of reproducible error fixing versus the difficulty of finding the much more elusive error that cannot be easily repeated. The ultimate expression of that philosophy is called Microsoft Windows.
However REAL programs take pride in their work and do not care a wit about how long it takes to find and fix an error. And they will do it on their own time if their employer does not consider that cause worthy of payment.
I am not talking about user error - but when one hears the same issue from multiple users, it becomes a credible error. The fact that it is not repeatable may be more due to not understanding that something one did two minutes earlier was necessary to cause the problem. Most repeatable errors have a short interval between what needs to be done and the resulting error. But the error is no less real if the repeat sequence is long and obtuse. Most problems ARE repeatable it is just that the exact sequence of events is not yet known.
Certainly in those situations it does require a lot of time and one could even suggest that the time required is "not worth it". But that is the difference between a stable product and a flaky one. One could also suggest that adding feature after feature to please a very small subset of users is "not worth it" and interestingly doing that is often the cause of those unrepeatable errors.
All users of a piece of software are at the mercy of the programmer(s) AND the "management" who decides what features or fixes are to be implemented. As software goes, X2 is one of the better programs in this regard. Although a new user, and not a very demanding one as far as using all of its capabilities, I am VERY pleased with X2 and the support I have received.
One last note: there was a smiley face at the end of my original email. In my part of the world that is meant to suggest a teasing or tongue-in-cheek interpretation of the preceding words. I think that is how my chiding was received, but I just want to make sure. As someone who has been programming for longer than some of you have been alive (started coding using octal - no compilers, no high level language - paper tape was the preferred means of loading software) I think I have experienced almost everything you have in the area of program errors. So I am painfully aware of the difficulties in finding and fixing the elusive bugs.
However REAL programs take pride in their work and do not care a wit about how long it takes to find and fix an error. And they will do it on their own time if their employer does not consider that cause worthy of payment.
I am not talking about user error - but when one hears the same issue from multiple users, it becomes a credible error. The fact that it is not repeatable may be more due to not understanding that something one did two minutes earlier was necessary to cause the problem. Most repeatable errors have a short interval between what needs to be done and the resulting error. But the error is no less real if the repeat sequence is long and obtuse. Most problems ARE repeatable it is just that the exact sequence of events is not yet known.
Certainly in those situations it does require a lot of time and one could even suggest that the time required is "not worth it". But that is the difference between a stable product and a flaky one. One could also suggest that adding feature after feature to please a very small subset of users is "not worth it" and interestingly doing that is often the cause of those unrepeatable errors.
All users of a piece of software are at the mercy of the programmer(s) AND the "management" who decides what features or fixes are to be implemented. As software goes, X2 is one of the better programs in this regard. Although a new user, and not a very demanding one as far as using all of its capabilities, I am VERY pleased with X2 and the support I have received.
One last note: there was a smiley face at the end of my original email. In my part of the world that is meant to suggest a teasing or tongue-in-cheek interpretation of the preceding words. I think that is how my chiding was received, but I just want to make sure. As someone who has been programming for longer than some of you have been alive (started coding using octal - no compilers, no high level language - paper tape was the preferred means of loading software) I think I have experienced almost everything you have in the area of program errors. So I am painfully aware of the difficulties in finding and fixing the elusive bugs.
We are, or at least I am. I included 2 smilies in my response too :=)drac wrote:...there was a smiley face at the end of my original email. In my part of the world that is meant to suggest a teasing or tongue-in-cheek interpretation of the preceding words. I think that is how my chiding was received, but I just want to make sure...
-Thracx
"Man wants to know, and when he ceases to do so, he is no longer a man."
-Fridtjof Nansen
"Man wants to know, and when he ceases to do so, he is no longer a man."
-Fridtjof Nansen
psychic powers help only with big obvious problems. They cannot help solve freak effects of cosmic radiation on overclocked computersdrac wrote:A REAL programmer can look at the symptom (reported behavior) and deduce the possible causes - just by thinking about the way their code works.
what would your doctor say if you showed up and said, "I'm ill doc"?
It was - but it was also out of context... no multiple complaints were received (pertaining to this thread), and only one known-to-be-cantankerous user (me) actually noted any odd behaviour - for which I accept the full responsibility of discovering a reproducible event out of it. Hell, that's half the fun of actually seeing these chimeras.drac wrote:In my part of the world that is meant to suggest a teasing or tongue-in-cheek interpretation of the preceding words. I think that is how my chiding was received, but I just want to make sure.
(But I also never miss a chance to give out to Nikos, as that is my actual and only purpose around here.)Not when it comes to programmes which play within the paradigm of Windows Shell Extensibility they aren't. Indeed, most users here have multiple second or third-party extensions installed, which is difficult for a poor beleaguered Nikos to verify one way or the other, short of everyone submitting memory dumps. Most users themselves don't declare (or even remember, half the time) what "else" they may be running which could cause all sorts of shenanigans within the shell, and some things (like firewalls/AV suites) can be downright difficult to completely disengage even when the user knows what he's doing.drac wrote:All users of a piece of software are at the mercy of the programmer(s) AND the "management" who decides what features or fixes are to be implemented.
Thus, if we were debugging the latest release of My Little Pony one could start with the "closed system" assumption, and work from the inside out, confident that sooner or later you'd hit the perimeter of the programme's sphere of influence. In the case of x2, barring a glaring and obvious oversight by Nikos, we have to work from the point of view of assuming an unstable platform to begin with (the idiot-user first and then his computer). So, while it may seem overly presumptuous to automatically assume the user to be at fault and place the onus on him to report a "reproducible event", it's not completely unjustified.
All that being true, sometimes Nikos does require a serious kick in the backside, as being sole programmer and sole management of this little fascist merry-go-round, he sometimes forgets that his world view is more parochial than he imagines, and that while the vast majority of demanding users are perhaps not the best source of feedback to rely upon, neither is his own intuition.
But... there's always My Little Pony 2: The Equine Encephalomyelitis Vector to look forward to!
Again, as a new user, I am not privy to the hierarchy of ZabKat. However it sounds like the combination of TWO names so I thought that “Kat” represented a second person. From what I have gleaned from posts on this forum, Nikos has a child or two and one can hope that even at their young age he has started training them in the intricacies of X2 and the programming that is at its core. I think I read something about little fingers on the keyboard - hopefully those little fingers will become helpful and the children, born into the world of X2, will surpass Nikos in their understanding of X2 and ability to evolve it as well as maintain it.
As to issues caused by third party software running on the same computer as X2, that is part of today’s world of computers. When I started programming a computer could run just one program at a time. Things were easier in that regard, though computers were far less useable. A programmer must anticipate anything and everything a user might do and program a response - often a response that will protect the software from the user - and from other software on the same computer. The world inside a multitasking computer is like a post apocalyptic scenario with bands of evildoers roaming the landscape, plundering and pillaging. In order to survive, a program must be strong and MUST be able to defend itself against all those threats. A program, even a program that does good things, is of no use to anyone if it cannot function and survive in that intra-Windows world. So to Nikos, his progeny and all those who would create software, I say, “be strong and steel yourself against all dangers before setting forth”.
As to issues caused by third party software running on the same computer as X2, that is part of today’s world of computers. When I started programming a computer could run just one program at a time. Things were easier in that regard, though computers were far less useable. A programmer must anticipate anything and everything a user might do and program a response - often a response that will protect the software from the user - and from other software on the same computer. The world inside a multitasking computer is like a post apocalyptic scenario with bands of evildoers roaming the landscape, plundering and pillaging. In order to survive, a program must be strong and MUST be able to defend itself against all those threats. A program, even a program that does good things, is of no use to anyone if it cannot function and survive in that intra-Windows world. So to Nikos, his progeny and all those who would create software, I say, “be strong and steel yourself against all dangers before setting forth”.