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Code red alert

You are very keen to send in error dialogue boxes, but it is always good to hear from the other side: those of you responsible for creating these baffling alerts in the first place.
‘When I worked in an IT company managing hardware alerts, I used defensive programming techniques to cater for conditions that could never arise – according to the supplier’s specification,’ says Alex Kodah.
Of course, those problems regularly arose, putting up the message: UNEXPECTED ALARM. ‘This caused unexpected alarm among customers and higher management,’ he said. ‘So I opted for NO CAUSE FOR ALARM.’
Everyone was much happier, he reports, until an error occurred, no one did anything about it – and the equipment caught fire.

March 21, 2007 in backbytes | Permalink

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