Open letter to software developers

[greatblondino.livejournal.com]

 Software developers, take heed. If you intend to include error messages in your application that say 'Contact your system administrator', please, for the love of all that is holy, also include a button that says 'I am the goddamn system administrator, now tell me what the f**k is wrong'. It would be really, really helpful.

Once people pass calls to me, there isn't really anywhere higher for them to go. C'mon, do us all a favour and give us something to work with, yeah?

Cheers.

Comments

[bamatone.livejournal.com]

Wow, I just had this same exact thought yesterday. Yes. Yes, indeed.

[melstav]

At least provide a (optionally) cryptic error message at the bottom of the error message that I can use to reference the documentation or search Google... Or to speed up the resolution of the support ticket I'm going to file with your company.

[egearman.livejournal.com]

Agreed. An error message, error code or a link to a manual.

Something to point us in the right direction.

[tullamoredew.livejournal.com]

yeah, its either this or billions lines of logs for me to dig through

[elffin.livejournal.com]

Clearly, /their/ sysadmin just /knows/ what is wrong with any given product by default, so it's natural to assume that /everyone's/ sysadmin knows; It's probably best to call the developer's office manager, and ask for their sysadmin's phone extension, so you can both comisserate on how awesome it is to know exactly what's wrong from a generic error message.

At 3AM.

...

I, I don't understand, what kind of IT cert is "BOFH"?

[ptomblin-lj.livejournal.com]

I worked as a developer at a company where they had it set up so every time the product got a Java exception, it got emailed to every developer in the company. Since you weren't even allowed to start looking at the code until somebody assigned you a bug in the *two* different bug trackers, I never saw the point of that other than making sure you got a "new mail" pop up ever 30 seconds or so.

[kizayaen.livejournal.com]

+many.

I especially love that I can get this error after compiling a program myself and running it on the commandline. "Program has requested termination in an unusual way. Please see your etc. etc."

Right, Microsoft. Because a systems administrator is going to have any clue that J Random Program just committed seppuku due to its coder accidentally initializing a variable improperly.

"Program has requested termination in an unusual way" is also NOT a helpful message.

[hyuga.livejournal.com]

Long since done. The system administrator gets a full traceback, local variables, lots of other nice stuff.

[samldanach.livejournal.com]

I'll give you an "AMEN" and a "HALLELUJAH!"

I am particularly having this trouble with BusinessObjects currently. I am the BOXI admin in the company, and the most knowledgeable person about the product. There are huge swaths of the program that are a total mystery to me, and to pretty much every other user and consultant (even those from SAP) I've talked to. The product team just really hates to reveal how the product is actually functioning, so my event logs are filled with generic useless messages that may or may not be errors, but I've officially been told "Oh, don't worry about those, those just happen."

[seaofdestiny.livejournal.com]

generic useless messages that may or may not be errors, but I've officially been told "Oh, don't worry about those, those just happen."

Argh die die die!

Once you get used to ignoring this error message and that one, you end up ignoring real errors, too. Or even if you want to look for real errors, if they're hiding between a dozen of 'ignore these' errors that are each repeated a couple of hundred times, you're still stuck.

If an error message can be ignored, don't issue it! (Or, better yet, fix the code that produces the error.) Don't make me get into the habit of ignoring certain errors.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

One place where I whipped up an in-house program for only about a hundred users had a very carefully crafted error message of "not enough magic". It was just bizarre enough to make them stop, read it twice, and call me to make the weirdness go away. Which is precisely what I wanted them to do in that particular circumstance.

Of course, once I applied the appropriate handwavery, the next time they ran the program they got the message "More magic found!" and it continued on its merry way.

What can I say, I was inspired when I wrote it (http://www.jargon.net/jargonfile/a/AStoryAboutMagic.html).

[jokergirl.livejournal.com]

Amen.

;)

[jokergirl.livejournal.com]

Not to mention the very helpful (in the not-helpfull-at-all way) questionnaire that MS has added to their help menu. ("No, my USB module has power. No, it's not in conflict. No, it's installed correctly. NO, I DON'T WANT TO SEEK HELP ELSEWHERE! I'M THE ADMIN!" *headdesk*)

;)

[laviededavid.livejournal.com]

Dude i make that wish daily where i work...and every now and again you'll get a user to get the error to you in full but sadly they forget to include what program they're getting it in most of the time so im not sure if thats any better lol

[natalie-i-am.livejournal.com]

"Unknown error"

"Oh, we know about that"... so why the hell is it unlisted?

====

Or as the OP stated "I am the system admin" in my old home that had a lot more cursing... then a cry for help, or in somecases a very small keyboard being smashed.

[braidedmane.livejournal.com]

Best error message ever.