To me, one of the most important things a piece of code (whether it's an 
entire program, or just a single routine) can do is fail gracefully.  If 
it fails, enough context and information should be given that you know 
why it failed.

iTunes is absolutely horrible at this.  Apparently, Apple thinks that 
"failing gracefully" means quietly ignore the error with no record of it 
being kept anywhere.  In other words, you don't even *know* there's an 
error.  Your only clue is that the expected result didn't actually 
occur.  Once you figure out there's been an error, you have no idea what 
caused it.

Talk about bad practice.

...Chambers

Post a reply to this message

Chambers wrote:
> Talk about bad practice.

I remember spending 15 minutes or so on an original Mac trying to figure 
out why I couldn't save my work, or make a copy of it on the floppy, or 
etc etc etc, because the floppy was write-protected. No message or 
anything - just failure to highlight the drive icon when you drag the 
folder over it, a greyed-out save menu, etc.

I liked the Amiga mechanism much better. You drag a file onto a disk 
icon, it pops up a window saying the drive is write-protected, you take 
the disk out, unprotect it, put it back in, and it automatically clicks 
"retry" for you.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

Post a reply to this message

Chambers <ben### [at] pacificwebguycom> wrote:
> To me, one of the most important things a piece of code (whether it's an
> entire program, or just a single routine) can do is fail gracefully.  If
> it fails, enough context and information should be given that you know
> why it failed.
>
> iTunes is absolutely horrible at this.  Apparently, Apple thinks that
> "failing gracefully" means quietly ignore the error with no record of it
> being kept anywhere.  In other words, you don't even *know* there's an
> error.  Your only clue is that the expected result didn't actually
> occur.  Once you figure out there's been an error, you have no idea what
> caused it.
>
> Talk about bad practice.
>
> ...Chambers

I've had repeated problems over the years with Quicktime to the
point where I dread installing it.

-Mike

Post a reply to this message

Chambers wrote:
> To me, one of the most important things a piece of code (whether it's an 
> entire program, or just a single routine) can do is fail gracefully.  If 
> it fails, enough context and information should be given that you know 
> why it failed.
> 
> iTunes is absolutely horrible at this.  Apparently, Apple thinks that 
> "failing gracefully" means quietly ignore the error with no record of it 
> being kept anywhere.  In other words, you don't even *know* there's an 
> error.  Your only clue is that the expected result didn't actually 
> occur.  Once you figure out there's been an error, you have no idea what 
> caused it.
> 
> Talk about bad practice.

For the average iTunes user (think:  grossly ignorant teenager), 
feedback would be useless.

Regards,
John

Post a reply to this message

John VanSickle wrote:

> For the average iTunes user (think:  grossly ignorant teenager), 
> feedback would be useless.

I disagree.

If you're an idiot, you won't understand what the error message is 
saying. But knowing that there was an actual error is still useful.

PS. Not all teenagers are ignorant. Some of them use WinAmp. *rimshot*

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:
> 
> I liked the Amiga mechanism much better. You drag a file onto a disk 
> icon, it pops up a window saying the drive is write-protected, you take 
> the disk out, unprotect it, put it back in, and it automatically clicks 
> "retry" for you.
> 

That can't be good, 'cause it assumes that user can and will do 
something to prevent the error, while computers Should Just Work (or be 
delivered to service company).

-- 
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
    http://www.zbxt.net
       aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid

Post a reply to this message

>> I liked the Amiga mechanism much better. You drag a file onto a disk 
>> icon, it pops up a window saying the drive is write-protected, you 
>> take the disk out, unprotect it, put it back in, and it automatically 
>> clicks "retry" for you.
>>
> 
> That can't be good, 'cause it assumes that user can and will do 
> something to prevent the error, while computers Should Just Work.

Yes. Silently refusing to do what the user asked without telling them 
why would be a far superior solution. Especially when the problem is 
trivially fixable.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Eero Ahonen wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>>
>> I liked the Amiga mechanism much better. You drag a file onto a disk 
>> icon, it pops up a window saying the drive is write-protected, you 
>> take the disk out, unprotect it, put it back in, and it automatically 
>> clicks "retry" for you.
>>
> 
> That can't be good, 'cause it assumes that user can and will do 
> something to prevent the error, 
You had always the option of cancelling in stead of solving the problem.

> while computers Should Just Work (or be 
> delivered to service company).

I also like the MS solution of giving the error but no retry option (at 
least unto XP). Works great when copying lots of files and after 10 
minutes one of the last ones encounters a disk full.

Post a reply to this message

andrel wrote:

> I also like the MS solution of giving the error but no retry option (at 
> least unto XP). Works great when copying lots of files and after 10 
> minutes one of the last ones encounters a disk full.

Ooo yes, it's *great* when a file copy or move operation fails. 
Especially with a move - half the files are now in one place, and half 
in another place. Good luck manually undoing the operation so you can 
try again! ;-)

(Particularly if you have millions of files in a complex directory 
structure. Merging the two halves back together is really not fun...)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Eero Ahonen wrote:
> That can't be good, 'cause it assumes that user can and will do 
> something to prevent the error, while computers Should Just Work (or be 
> delivered to service company).

I haven't any idea what that means, I'm afraid.

Not even knowing that there was something I could do to un-dim the 
option on the Mac is what confused me. I had no idea it was done on 
purpose, and it wasn't just something I was doing wrong.

Kind of like in an adventure game where there's no difference between 
"you can't do that" and "I don't understand that" and "you can't do that 
here and now".

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

Post a reply to this message