From: blockedofcourse@foo.invalid
On 2/1/2026 1:58 PM, albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl wrote:
> In article <10lmdtj$3cdnh$2@dont-email.me>,
> Don Y wrote:
>>> Oh dear, another example of ineptness triumphing over technical
>>> goodness.
>>
>> There is a mistaken emphasis on usability and deferred error
>> checking -- to make "coding" less difficult for the inept.
>>
>> Even in languages that have scoping rules that allow you to
>> be more pedantic in defining identifiers, people choose to
>> ignore them as an expedient.
>>
>> "The larger the dictionary, the FEWER the number of misspellings
>> the spell-checker will find!"
>>
>> Similarly, laziness in deploying invariants lets errors in
>> *processing* creep into data and persist -- often beyond
>> the point where they COULD have been noticed!
>>
>> ("This value can't exist here! But, once you get PAST this
>> point, the code will treat it as valid data...")
>>
>> The worst misuse (IM) of Excel is in place of a database.
>> Yet, people seem terrified to NOT be able to see their data
>> at a glance (really? can you SPOT an error that would merit
>> its presentation, thusly?)
>>
>> [I have encountered datasets maintained in excel (and other spreadsheets)
>> that were horrendously large and impossible to manage. Yet, offering
>> to restructure the data in a database brings terror to the users...]
>
> I have worked for the Rotterdam Harbour. There was a guy there that
> had a huge spreadsheet, keeping track of *all* naval vessels
> whereabouts.
I was offered a contract to design a database to track commercial
properties owned by a large corporation, here. The guy offering
the contract was currently using an /ad hoc/ spreadsheet that was
little more than a giant table (the data in each field having no
actual significance -- but, it looked nice when presented in tabular
form! ) As he pitched his requirements to me, he made
statements like:
"The first letter can indicate whether it is office space,
lab space or a commercial outlet. The second letter can
indicate the direction of the main entrance. The third letter
can indicate the number of floors. The fourth will indicate
which month the lease is up for renewal -- unless it is not
a leased property -- in which case it will indicate the number
of bathrooms on the premises. The..."
He had actually TRIED to organize his spreadsheet so all similar
criteria were grouped together -- quickly discovering the limits
of two-dimensional space for such an endeavor!
I.e., the typical mindset of the sort of person who just doesn't
"get it" -- let the machine do the remembering so YOU don't have to!
(If you want to be able to identify properties that face east, then
search for "... WHERE door_faces = EAST ...")
In *his* mind, he was almost done -- and just needed someone to
clean up the little details.
I waited to get back home before submitting my "no bid" to his
superior. Obviously the sort of contract that would run on and
on and on and on and... and NEVER see a satisfactory conclusion.
Great if you're looking for a paycheck; not so great if you
value your time!
> I worked with a sql database that contains all loading and unloading
> used to reconstructed the path of vessels around the harbour.
> There was a great surprise, vessels unloaded in the middle of a
> an agrarian area. Later I discover that was a placeholder of
> docking stations that had disappeared.
Obviously, someone hadn't finished their design task! At the very least,
annotating this deficiency.
I once received a notice from a financial institution that they
were required, by law, to withhold a portion of my earnings /because
they did not have my social security number on file/. This despite
the fact that my SSN was printed ON the notification!
Turns out, some idiot had decided "0" would represent "none/nil"
(because their DBMS didn't understand the concept of "BLANK"?).
And, had further implemented the test on the first CHARACTER of
the SSN (9 digits identifiers of the form ###-##-####).
At the time my SSN was issued, the numbers were allocated, in batches,
to geographical areas. So, anyone living near me, at the time, would
also have a SSN of the form 0##-##-####. Ooops!
>>> I repeatedly complain to an R user which is an Excel user via
>>> quotations like so: "languages like PHP and Mathematica are still
>>> heedless to variable misspellings; [. . .] reversing bad design
>>> decisions, is often impossible once there is a community of users. The
>>> shortcomings of Perl, PHP, CSS, JavaScript, etc, are going to persist
>>> [. . .] JavaScript, Perl, PHP, Excel [. . .] having little type
>>> safety" says
>>> Harold Thimbleby, "Heedless programming: ignoring detectable error is
>>> a widespread hazard", "Software: Practice and Experience"
>
> There is a widespread habit of "casing away" warnings. That is in the same
> category. Most programs can avoid those. The proper way is to log warnings
> with an explanation of why they are not indicative of a mistake.
Or, rethink how you are approaching the problem and ask yourself if
a better type choice would avoid that scenario.
Some languages will gleefully cast/convert anything to anything else.
Immature developers fail to understand the value of strong typing
and tend to see it as a nuisance.
Like complaining that a program needs an "END" ("It's OBVIOUSLY the end of
the program/file... why do I have to explicitly state that??? How stupid...")
Or, using REALs for every variable.
I hold "hungarian notation" in particular disdain. It complicates naming
and opens up opportunities for a lazy developer to leave an "old" name
in place that no longer is conforming.
I also roll my eyes at how often folks fail to handle integer overflow
(esp in address arithmetic). As if they were dealing with actual "numbers"
where such an occurrence is not possible.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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