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Rick York wrote: magine my frustration at how poorly the customer trained their operators. I had already been instructed to assume a sixth grade reading level
I, I kid you not, had to change all text in a version of the software to add recognizable pictograms to any prompt or error because a large part of the working force, QA in a pharmaceutical company, was totally illiterate.
GCS d--(d-) s-/++ a C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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There are no doubts from me. 
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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I added "who did what when logging"; which everyone is aware of and can access (read). It does reduce the times they reach for the kill switch. And voice with the text: WARNING! WARNING! ... (and cross and skull bones here and there).
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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I did that too with logged events but they couldn't be bothered to have separate accounts for each user so everyone used a generic "operator" account.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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Not on the same scale at all, but at one time (1980s, when I was in my mid-20s) I worked on a credit-card processing system. It was all batch COBOL stuff and ran for many hours each night. Myself and a colleague took turns on overnight support, which involved using a portable dial-up teletype to get a core dump, from which we diagnosed any problem and either corrected faulty input or coded up a workaround. One day my colleague dealt with a problem but inadvertently used a comma, not a full stop, in one correction. I don't know the exact problem, but suffice to say that during the review next day we realised he'd "lost" a little over £12,000. He was mortified and for the next few weeks I was petrified when making code changes at 3am on my own... (Sitting on the floor in my hallway because the modem lead wasn't long enough).
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For this reason alone (just kidding, I love games) I went to videogame programming. No interaction with clients and nobody dies.
But coming of age I've become more stoic about it. Civil and aeronautic engineers have a hell of a lot more lives on their shoulders...and they seem to shrug off the what ifs pretty well.
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� Forogar � wrote: Has anyone else been in a similar situation?
My first bug in the wild wasn't scary, until things went wrong.
Caused some machinery to be out of sync. 14k in damages, I was 19 at the time.
The boss just remarked I won't make the same mistake twice 
Always been cautious about the jobs I accept. Never anything medical again either.
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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Not I. The closest I've been is to work on a commercial desktop program that keeps companies' escrow accounts balanced. If their escrow accounts can't balance, someone is going to jail. The risk is not even close to the same level as your project, but some people act as if it was.
I tell all the new devs that work on the escrow account code, "If the money isn't right, then you don't have a job - no excuses."
Bond
Keep all things as simple as possible, but no simpler. -said someone, somewhere
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Some years ago I created the software to monitor the jacks under an aircraft as it was being serviced. Basically you could put load x on jacks y to z and unzip the plane around the middle without it falling apart, that kind of stuff. The actual, aircraft is no longer flying but it was that one with the long pointy nose that flew at Mach 2 (no names, no pack drill!).
The whole project was being run by an engineering company so we were basically a sub contractor, the software was just down to me and it communicated with a "black box" that monitored the load cells on the jacks. We used an IBM PS2 computer which had been recently released and had a decent hi res graphics screen. The program had a configuration part where you entered the calibration information for each of the 15 or so load cells. When running it showed the load from each cell dynamically overlaid on an outline of the aircraft. Should a load exceed a preconfigured limit then a siren attached to the console would sound. I also supplied a detailed manual that covered all aspects of configuration and use.
So, the main contractor picked up the whole caboodle and took it off the the airport for delivery to the maintenance hangars, my business partner and I decided to visit too but when we got to the hangar they had not arrived. We went on into town for another appointment and called in again on the way back.
We were told that the main contractor had been but there were problems so thay had taken everything away with them.
Later that day, early evening I had a call from the manufacturers of the load cells. The whole system had been dropped off with them and they were testing it using their massive presses. They found the system was working 100% with significantly higher accuracy than the minimum requested.
Apparently an engineer had been busy jacking up the aircraft during the test. The jacks were manual and he began to have problems, so he fitted a 2ft extension to the jack handle and carried on before realising that something was not right and the actual load must be way more than what was displayed.
The main contractor had taken my manual, ripped off the covers and added their own but did not bother to read it. Each load cell had characteristics that were up to 100% apart so they had the wrong load cells aligned to the wrong calibration parameters thus the cells were reading way off.
So, now you know why said aircraft had a bent droopy nose
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Back in the days when I worked for Orange Mobile Communications UK as an engineer, the department handled a lot of the call routing for the Tetra Network in the north of England and Scotland.
On top of that we where also responsible for the B2B SMS routing systems used by a number of the large Metropolitan Scottish Fire services covering places like Fife, Glasgow and even Aberdeen.
Aberdeenshire was of particular concern, because should an incident happen on one of the North Sea oil/gas rigs, Aberdeen would be the central operations area co-ordinating emergency services and evacuations.
Tetra for those that don't know is the 2 way GSM based digital radio system that the UK police use, or did, I don't know if it's still used today
Basically though, our engineering team where responsible for making sure all those communications and SMS messages got sent to the correct message displays in the cab's of Fire Engines and Ambulances, and that police officers requests for back up and assistance where routed to the correct control rooms.
One small slip up in the routing software or the systems controlling any of the GSM infrastructure could result in a Fire Engine going to the Wrong place, or some one needing help not getting it in time, needless to say we where very quick to investigate even the smallest most innocuous report for any of those systems.
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While I have developed "scary" systems, the scariest was being a victim of faulty programming in my Ford F150.
It seems that Ford had gone to what they call EPAS--Electronically Powered Assisted Steering in my 2012 F150. Essentially, EPAS is drive by wire and has nifty software features such trailer sway control and crown load detection.
In one circumstance, I was driving a country road, hit a significant deflection in the road surface and the truck took over steering and rolled. As far as I can guess, it seems that there the software had an algorithm for "roll-over protection" and it "thought" the truck was rolling. But instead of correcting by simply holding straight, it elected to counter-steer.
I ended up hanging upside down from my seat belt while the truck dialed 911 and got an emergency dispatcher on the line.
Truck was considered totaled because the airbags had deployed and it costs more to "clean"the truck and replace the airbags than the truck was worth.
The irony is that about three weeks after I settled with my insurance company, I got a urgent recall notice from Ford to bring my truck in and have the software updated.
I will not trust drive-by-wire in difficult situations---No software developer or engineer can encode ALL the circumstances that might be encountered.
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Hallo,
ich arbeite mich gerade in NET ein, vorher habe ich in Classic ASP programmiert. Mein jetziger Code wird richtig angezeigt.
<pre> <table>
<asp:Repeater ID="DataListName" runat="server">
<ItemTemplate>
<tr>
<td class="SchriftName"><asp:Label ID="LabelID" runat="server" Text ='<% Eval("Name") %>'</td>
</tr>
</ItemTemplate>
</asp:Repeater>
</table>
Aber ich möchte abhängig von einer Marke (True oder False) einen Link setzen. Ich möchte das auch in aspx machen, aber weis nicht wie?
Translation:
Hello
I'm currently working my way into NET, before that I programmed in Classic ASP. My current code is displayed correctly.
But I want to set a link depending on a brand (True or False). I want to do this in aspx as well, but don't know how?
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This is the wrong place - and the wrong language - to ask this, as it explains at the top of the page.
Please ask again, in the correct place: Ask a question[^] but do note that this is an English language site, and we can only accept and answer questions in that language.
Dies ist der falsche Ort - und die falsche Sprache - um dies zu fragen, wie oben auf der Seite erklärt wird.
Bitte stellen Sie erneut eine Frage an der richtigen Stelle: Stellen Sie eine Frage[^] Beachten Sie jedoch, dass dies eine englischsprachige Website ist und wir nur Fragen in dieser Sprache annehmen und beantworten können .
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Did you read far enough to see that he provided the question in English as well?
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Did you see it two hours ago when it didn't have a translation? 
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Dies ist der falsche Ort, um Programmierfragen zu stellen. Siehe den roten Text oben auf dieser Seite. Versuchen Sie, im Abschnitt "Fragen" zu fragen.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Dilbert[^]
1. If you are the engineer, don't talk too much and launch the old despot into space already. He wanted it, he got it.
2. If you are the CEO, use natural processes to motivate the engineers and weed out the bad ones. I would suggest to use Igor Sikorsky's method: You built it, now you fly it.
Quote: “At that time the chief engineer was almost always the chief test pilot as well. That had the fortunate result of eliminating poor engineering early in aviation.”
-- Igor Sikorsky
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
modified 9-Nov-21 7:27am.
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A very sound principle! My grandfather had a sporting motor of some pedigree which had cable operated drum brakes. The correct servicing and tensioning of the cables was essential to stay out of the ditch. After every service he would put the mechanic in the co-pilots seat, and then give it some serious wellie along the Hog's Back (a road which Brits will know of).
The brake cables were always perfectly adjusted! 
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Guildford - Farnham.
I know it well. It's really boring now, straight dual carriageway replaced the early two-lane curly stuff that needed good brakes. 
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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And they have added average speed cameras on the Farnham to Guildford side so no racing to Guildford anymore.
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I haven't driven it for (gulp) 50 years, but back then it had considerable charm (and skid marks).
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First time I hit the the magic (well it was then ) ton was on the hogs back , the bends seemed to get tighter and tighter the faster you went - and my Bonneville wasn't the best handling / stopping machine.
"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!" - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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So what does it say about the Boeing Starliner that the original test pilots for it have all left Boeing?
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It's taken so long no one alive today was around when it started?
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Watch band pout - maybe catch a rodent? (9)
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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