Great Moments in Computer Programming

[pinback]

Steam is touting their "New Search Features!"

Apparently one of the features is, if you search for a game by typing in the name of the game exactly, that game will be listed NINETEENTH on the results page, under a dozen games that do not even have the search string in the name, and are not remotely in the same category.

[Flack]

In their defense, you really had to search for it, which could be considered a feature.

[AArdvark]

This is a Google tactic, isnt it, putting games Steam wants you to maybe get interested in before listing the game you were searching for.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Pinback, did you run that search on AC power?

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

NexusMods, a place where you download mods to games, wanted me to use two factor authentication to prove that I was who I said I was. Thank God. Can you imagine if my account was compromised and someone used it to DOWNLOAD MODS??

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I installed an app on my phone last night. It wanted a birthday. No problem, I'll click on the text field and enter garbage.

If you clicked on the text field it brought up a calendar. It started with November 2020.

And you could only go backwards one month at a time.

And it demanded that you be at least 13.

So they want you to hit the "left" button 12x13 times.

It was brilliant webshit. It was the culmination of a decade of webshit garbage incompetence. It was beautiful. Three times I touched away from the calendar and back to the text field and each time it took me to the calendar.

[uruzrune]

But they did the needful.

[Tdarcos]

If you clicked on the text field it brought up a calendar. It started with November 2020.

And you could only go backwards one month at a time.

And it demanded that you be at least 13.

So they want you to hit the "left" button 12x13 times.

It was brilliant webshit.

(Sigh.) This is really stupid. The only thing that makes any sene here is the requirement to be at least 13. That's a result of the Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act (of 1998) or COPPA, which makes it illegal to collect personal information from people under 13 absent verified parental permission.

But, this sort of thing can be done right, and not merely done right but elegantly done right. There is a program called "Bulk File Changer" that is a great (and free) utility to change dates on files, either creation, access, update or any combination, and you can pick files or drag and drop them.

The date picker is one of if not the best I've ever seen.
* You click on the arrow button next to the date field, it brings up this month's calendar, with "November 2020" in top center and arrows to the left and right, which move one month, left earlier, right later.
* At the bottom is a box you can click on to choose today.'s date this item remains on every view.
* Click on the Month at the top and it switches to a display where it shows all 12 months and puts the year at the top with arrow keys to move left to the previous year or right to the current year.
* Click upon the year and it shows the decade, plus the year before and the year after, showing "2020-2030" with the arrow keys moving one decade.
* Click on the decade and it shows the ten decades of the century plus the last decade of the previous century and the first decade of the next.
* The arrow keys now move a century at a time. Or you pick an item and it goes back to decades, and so on.
* Beyond this, you may hold down the arrow keys to move continuously, Which it can do on any setting.
* You can select any date from 1600 to 9999.

Yep, there are things that can be done right. The crapware you discovered isn't one of them, obviously.
* When one is doing web development I'm sure there are probably a dozen free calendar widgets in straight Javascript or a jQuery plug-in to do a decent, if not excellent, calendarpicker.
* For compiled languages I'm sure there are published libraries (like CPAN for Perl or something) for Java to use for this. They used to sell CD ROMs full of source code packages with hundreds or thousands of different functions. Use just one and you've saved your company the 10-20 bucks the disk cost, or if, as in my case, I bought it with my own money, it saves me hours of drudge work that someone else has already done.

This isn't just incompetence, because even stupid or lazy people like me know the best programming you can do is not to do it at all, to figure out if you need it. The second best is to get someone else to do the work. And that's where using (for browser applications) a Javascript library like jQuery along with a plug-in for a pop-up date picker makes sense. And where you're using a compiled language, looking at published open source/software libre offerings makes more sense.

The third best way is to do the work when you're competent. This, in the example you showed, is the worst way to do something, for someone who either doesn't know how and/or didn't care, and never has to use it themselves. Because nobody puts those kind of abominations on their own back if they themselves have to use it.

Even if you can't find something on an MIT license (if you sell the software) it can probably give you ideas on how to correctly do it

This is why dogfooding is the most important part of a developer's workstyle. If you have to use the software yourself you won't foist this kind of thing on yourself (or other people). We've found (in studies) that the practice has been proven to improve software usability and makes it be much better done.

I Just looked it up, a search for "java datepicker example" returned 849,000 hits on Google (many if not most using the Swing graphical interface library), 2.4 million on Bing (same thing, they Swing), but on DuckDuckGo it does not tell you bhow many, just shows you a page at a time and requires you to click on a "show more" button, and there are more than four pages. Nonetheless there are lots of options, probably almost all being better than that "spawn of..." no, "interface of Satan" you found.

[AArdvark]

when answering DOB questions I invariably choose the oldest date allowed by the software. If they allow two hundred year olds to log in then I'll give them one. Also it skews me out of any relevant advertising demographics

THE
COFFIN SALE
AARDVARK

[Tdarcos]

If you get to dveloping software the smart thing, of course, is to checkpoint each development, when you make a stable change you should do a code push to a repository. But if either things are going so well you get "into The Zone" and forget, or it's the first change or if it doesn't work, you might not want to checkpoint a broken release.

In any case, if you're trying to figure out what change you did fucked up something, or work on old vs. new source files often enough, you're going to eventually need a 'diff' tool, to tell you how things are different between two versions of files. They can also be used for patch scripts.

So I go looking for a diff tool, and I find many, all open source. The highest rated one is called Meld. Let me tell you something, while the Windows interface for finding files isn't that good, Meld's interface is worse!

To select a file, the only way you can do is to double-click on every intervening directory between your USERS\YourName directory and the one the file you want on. Or if it's on a different disk, the root directory. Then do it all over again, from the original base directory, not from the directory you just clicked on. There is no type in capability at all, you can't name a directory to go to.

Let me tell you something, creating an access method that's worse than Microsoft's "Find file" dialog takes real skill. And talent. Not just ordinary talent, it's like the talent involved in inventing new weapons that produce not more killing - that just gets rid of people, and dead people are a minor expense - but more crippling and debilitating injuries, causing the other side to expend huge amounts on medical expenses, potentially for the rest of the life of hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of people. Yeah, it takes that kind of sadistic talent to develop a less functional search.

I found a much better tool, called WinMerge, and it's perfect.

This should be the other program's slogan. "Meld: It's free, and not even worth that much. We should have to pay you to take it."

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Is that an ad? Are you paying for your treatment at the center through ads?

[Flack]

My wife was in a hurry and trying to print something out at home. Of course, the printer, an HP color laser printer, is not printing. I checked the printer and the display says "Supply Problem" with a bunch of question marks. I searched google to find that HP sent out an automatic firmware upgrade that prevents their printers from using third party toner cartridges.

The solution is to download an older firmware, change a few settings on the printer (one is to accept older firmwares, the other is to disable automatic updates), roll back the firmware, reset the printer, and reconfigure everything.

But just to clarify -- my $500 HP laser printer downloaded an installed a firmware without my knowledge that was designed to brick it.

There's no "HP" in customer service.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

My wife was in a hurry and trying to print something out at home. Of course, the printer, an HP color laser printer, is not printing. I checked the printer and the display says "Supply Problem" with a bunch of question marks. I searched google to find that HP sent out an automatic firmware upgrade that prevents their printers from using third party toner cartridges.

The solution is to download an older firmware, change a few settings on the printer (one is to accept older firmwares, the other is to disable automatic updates), roll back the firmware, reset the printer, and reconfigure everything.

But just to clarify -- my $500 HP laser printer downloaded an installed a firmware without my knowledge that was designed to brick it.

There's no "HP" in customer service.

Holy shit. That's incredible. And part of the absolute abortion which is trying to use anything these days.

[Flack]

Someone reported that with all those options turned off, their printer upgraded itself anyway. Maybe it did, and maybe they're confused. If it's true, I guess I'll disable the WiFi, buy the longest USB cable I can find, and put the printer there. I guess it's possible that the printer got updated through the computer, too. It's odd to have to treat a $500 device like a hostile combatant.

[AArdvark]

Ever since HP decided that my printer cartridges were out of date, like a salad at Wegmans, and refused to let me print anything until I replaced them I swore I would never, ever buy another HP product. Now I see they are TRYING to drive their customers away with forced firmware updates. Thank god I never need to print stuff at home anymore.

It sounds like HP is doing a Microsoft model. Fuck that.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I love that they pull this shit around Thanksgiving too, when a lot of people are going home and trying to get their folks' computers to work and so forth. CRAVEN. People should be locked up for this one.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Le'ts go see how fakced up steam is with sale

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Macros don't record anything in sublimeText. They don't *tell* you they aren't recording anything. They let you go on your way doing stuff. But they don't work or are broken or just blow.

I paid for sublimeText so finally I have anger that is righteous.

[Tdarcos]

Is that an ad? Are you paying for your treatment at the center through ads?

Of course it's an ad. They pay me twice as much per ad as you are currently paying me to post each article here.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Macros don't record anything in sublimeText. They don't *tell* you they aren't recording anything. They let you go on your way doing stuff. But they don't work or are broken or just blow.

I paid for sublimeText so finally I have anger that is righteous.

Notepad++ came to the rescue here, for what it is worth and for future reference. They allow macros, they work, and they worked for what I needed it to do. I have given far more to text baseball than it has ever given to me!