Software quality

John
I concur with you and Apple and Android platforms would do well to look to the Microsoft and Adobe solutions of Patch Tuesday - Wikipedia.
This no only helps corporate sys admins plan a patch cycle but resolve the zero-day attack scenario in a stroke.
Not a day goes by that I could check for updates on my Android device and there will be at least one so the advice, at the moment, would have to be ‘patch early and patch often’

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From the patch Tuesday method - theoretically software could be “out there” live for a month with known glitches.

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and who knows what damage/exposure could result in that time frame…

Every piece of software in use right now has a list of known issues as long as your arm.

As the software version approaches release, anything that isn’t a showstopper/critical security issue gets punted to the next release. New features that don’t work just get disabled.

Why? for the love of a call to “toupper” or the equivalent in your favourite programming language.

(moved here as original thread marked “stay on topic”).

I think the suggestion was made that having details in caps might make comparisons easier - yes, well, maybe case insensitive searches would help that but requiring the user to enter data in all caps for it to work while accepting data entry in lower case (thus breaking things) is ridiculous.

Appreciate your point made presumably as an ex software engineer (as indeed I am) but I can’t be certain that the requirement is entirely about resolving comparisons. I’m not defending the decision and the purpose behind it maybe is bizarre but the developers (or rather perhaps the architects of the application) have determined it to be so and entering data in lower case will not get the account created nor will it break the system, as it just won’t be accepted.
I think the same rule about capitals also applies to the impôts login so not just Amelie but a wider Government requirement.

Handling all caps internally is fine - after all historically some systems could not handle lower case at all so if they need to interface to any very old databases with all upper case records I can see why they might have done thaht.

But the decision that the user has to handle the mixed case → caps translation and the system doesn’t work if they don’t is either insane or malicious.

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Personally, I don’t see it as a problem - it’s only creating the account after all to their specification. After it’s created, it pales into insignificance and is long forgotten - the created accounts are accessed by your given number (fiscal/SS) anyway so what appears on the screen is immaterial thereafter.

EDIT: Today, I had a much welcomed notice from l’impôt (about a refund) and noticed that it is addressed to us both - names and address - IN CAPITAL LETTERS throughout so this clearly is a Republique Française standard.
Should I refuse the refund because the notice is in capital letters - No, I didn’t think so :slightly_smiling_face:

Yes but the user input needs to be sanitised anyway, would it hurt to map it to upper case as well, it will certainly help those mystified by failing to create their account because they entered their surname as Dupont and not DUPONT.

perhaps an unnecessary coding exercise?
Older coders are used to developing tight code - ask @John_Scully :slightly_smiling_face:
Younger coders seemingly are less concerned because they don’t have to be - but does that make tight or unnecessary routines in code wrong when the user can take the responsibility by simply pressing one key marked Caps Lock to progress through the routines unhindered?
Note that I alluded to you being a younger coder :slightly_smiling_face:

Good interface design reduces the chance for user error, or have we forgotten the lessons of the 80’s & 90’s

Actually I think we have - we went from a mess of inconsistencies when there weren’t really any design guidelines through to a more consistent look and feel and we seem to be back (largely through every web programmer doing it their own way) to a situation where it can be quite difficult to navigate web UIs because they all work slightly differently.

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Try negotiating the Bricomarche site, it really does my head in. :face_with_symbols_over_mouth::grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

https://www.bricomarche.com/

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My point exactly. Make the user press the appropriate tit and all that follows is error free without a mile of code and another forest cut down to provide listing paper. Press the tit again to avoid shouting at your next correspondent and the world and his wife are restored to good order :wink:

Actually, to extend that they often work slightly differently in each browser to add to the pain. There are reasons, of course as browsers differ in their HTML and Javascript implementations but more than one company has lost my business because their web site did not work in Firefox.

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