Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images • Hacker News Board

Re: Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

#251

Post by qubex » Thu, May 21, 2020, 7:15 PM UTC

duiker101 wrote: post #241

qubex wrote: post #219

I know this is mean of me, but the student who was taking her Computer Science exam and who apparently thought that changing the file’s extension would change format? Yeah... she deserved to fail.

its not unheard that websites do only extension validation for uploads, worth a try!

That totally misses the point though, because if the website only validates on the basis of extension and accepts the format in an unrecognised format, the backend won’t know how to handle it anyway. There’s no point uploading a HEIC file disguised as a PNG (or whatever) if eventually somewhere along the workflow an examiner is actually going to have to open that file in a program that doesn’t know how to parse HEICs.

Re: Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

#252

Post by cybwraith » Thu, May 21, 2020, 7:16 PM UTC

_bxg1 wrote: post #67

cybwraith wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think this was an engineering decision? These failing systems were probably contracted to a politically connected company that subcontracted to lowest bidder. Not only that, but that usually these systems were created with COBOL means that it was likely created a very long time ago and minimally updated as laws/requirements changed to be compliant but thats it. Thats not the fault of the engineer(s). A surge in t…

> These failing systems were probably contracted to a politically connected company that subcontracted to lowest bidder. And what if that government body established a policy that all contractors had to be certified engineers who hadn't lost their certification due to past negligence? Suddenly there's a much higher floor for "lowest bidder".

If the software engineers have the legal capability a current professional engineer certification does to tell the project manager 'no', that might work. Its still less about engineering capability, and more about leverage and protection against retaliation for pushing back on bad ideas/timelines. Even in traditional engineering disciplines, not everyone working on the project is a certified professional engineer, in fact they are usually the minority

Re: Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

#253

Post by neilparikh » Thu, May 21, 2020, 7:16 PM UTC

Hokusai wrote: post #150

jp555 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're suggesting bureaucratic "software" works better? I don't put as much faith in that as you.

> You're suggesting bureaucratic "software" works better? It works for building regulations, for electric regulations, for food safety regulations, for all the rest of industries actually. If anything we see people dying because that regulations are not enforced or are removed after lobbying. So, software is not going to be "better" but more reliable and a less costly foundation for the rest of business and industrie…

> If anything we see people dying because that regulations are not enforced or are removed after lobbying.

I want to push back on this point a little bit. People die as a result of regulations too, it's just less visible. Here's a very recent example. FDA regulations prevent other labs from creating their own COVID-19 tests, but the CDC tests didn't work. This delay probably lead to people not being diagnosed (and thus not receiving appropriate care), as well as much more spread throughout the US.

Another example would be the FDA approval process for drugs. A drug not being approved probably leads to some people dying, since it may have worked well for them. Zoning regulations in SF probably fall on the definitively net-negative side.

Now, my point here is not that we should remove all regulations. A bad drug being approved would lead to deaths too. Rather, I'm trying to make the point that restricting something has a cost, just like not restricting will have a cost.

Re: Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

#254

Post by Slartie » Thu, May 21, 2020, 7:17 PM UTC

lostlogin wrote: post #193

Alupis wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HEIC isn't supported in a lot of places. It's mainly (only?) Apple that uses it with iOS devices. Perhaps Apple should make it easier or automatic to convert into a format that's universally usable. Bet the same thing would have happened with webp images too. JPG and PNG are like the FAT32 format of images. Always accepted, everywhere.

> Perhaps Apple should make it easier or automatic to convert into a format that's universally usable. Further down this thread you’ll see that the board have messed up and they aren’t accepting images they should due to poor implementation. “ oefrha 1 hour ago [–] Tried a standard input tag with the proper accept attribute Selected a HEIC file from Photos in Safari, the selected image was automatically converted to…

As I understood the article, the problem did not arise when uploading the picture directly from the phone, but in cases in which the picture was first transferred to a computer (via Airdrop was explicitly mentioned, but could probably also have been a cable connection) and then uploaded from the computer. Whatever conversion the browser on the iPhone (or Safari on macOS, because there are other browsers on computers as well) does or does not do is irrelevant in such a situation.

Re: Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

#255

Post by mywittyname » Thu, May 21, 2020, 7:18 PM UTC

chadlavi wrote: post #206

bchociej wrote: post #127

.

Take two seconds to understand the situation before you comment. iOS automatically converts images to JPEG from HEIC if you use a standard input. College Board didn't, and then somehow either failed to do QA testing with iOS devices entirely, or did a poor job in not catching this huge bug. The failure here is definitely theirs.

This is not what happened, as per the article. The problem was with people who were downloading images from their phone to their desktop in HEIC format, then either failing to convert the images to JPEG, or complaining that the conversion process took too long.

>He Airdropped an iPhone image of his responses to his Mac and tried to convert it by renaming the HEIC file to PNG.

Everly Kai had the same problem with Computer Science A last week — she attempted to rename the file to JPEG and received the same email a few hours after submitting her test.

> Sean S. used OneDrive to port a photo to his Windows desktop from his iPhone, then attempted to convert the file with Windows Photo. Due to the photo’s size, the conversion took over five minutes.

The AP testing website has instructions for changing iPhone settings to the appropriate format and a user here confirms that their daughter was repeatedly informed of this matter before the AP test.

https://apcoronavirusupdates.collegeboard.org/students/takin...

Re: Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

#256

Post by ativzzz » Thu, May 21, 2020, 7:19 PM UTC

liveoneggs wrote: post #171

karatestomp wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We keep making a bunch of products where protocols and existing software would do just fine, while hitting fewer edge cases. Know what would be better than the ten goddamn apps and the iPad and shit they're using for our kid's school? Mailed (or emailed) worksheet packets with guidance, recorded lessons on Youtube. Mail back the worksheets, have the food-delivering schoolbuses pick them up, drop them off at the schoo…

yeah my 6 y/o hates remembering passwords. Fear of getting her password wrong almost made her afraid to use computers at all

Time to set up a family 1password, or if you're up for teaching your family, keepass.

Re: Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

#257

Post by adrianmonk » Thu, May 21, 2020, 7:20 PM UTC

zhengyi13 wrote: post #30

oefrha wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tried a standard input tag with the proper accept attribute Selected a HEIC file from Photos in Safari, the selected image was automatically converted to JPEG. Ten bucks says College Board programmer(s) failed to do the most basic and standard filtering. Edit: Like a sibling comment said, the accept attribute actually isn't necessary; even PNG images (e.g. screenshots) from Photos are converted to JPEG automatically.…

"Be strict in what you send; be liberal in what you accept" seems a relevant maxim here, but I wonder if it's reasonable to assume given the utter ubiquity of PNG and JPEG that of course that's what other people would be using?

If you're going to make an assumption, that one is definitely understandable.

However, taking a step back, you should have enough representative test cases (QA snaps a photo with iPhones, tries to upload) that whether assumptions are reasonable doesn't enter into it because you aren't making them.

Re: Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

#258

Post by gkoberger » Thu, May 21, 2020, 7:21 PM UTC

Hokusai wrote: post #77

> Basically, only Apple (and, more recently, Samsung) use the HEIC format — most other websites and platforms don’t support it. Even popular Silicon Valley-based services, such as Slack, don’t treat HEICs the same way as standard JPEGs. This is the key part. Many in the software industry still believes that the start-up mindset of break things move fast applies to us. The economy depends on software, governments depe…

I don't feel like Apple adopting a new format inherently means they're moving fast and breaking things. The work on HEIF started in 2012, and Apple has used it since 2017. 8 years isn't exactly a breakneck speed.

First off, they do a good job of converting it to a JPG when necessary. They've thought about backwards compatibility.

Secondly, if we didn't move forward, we'd never see any innovation. HEIF is smaller and allows for cool features like Live Photo.

Lastly, iOS is the second most popular phone operating system on the planet, and evidently they're asking students to take a picture of their answers with their phone. Is it not reasonable to expect the College Board to test it?

Re: Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

#259

Post by ativzzz » Thu, May 21, 2020, 7:23 PM UTC

_bxg1 wrote: post #16

AlchemistCamp wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're correct in your assessment that top-down bureaucracies really struggle with software but I don't think the solution is to inject a top-down bureaucratic gatekeeper in the path of every software career.

I'm only talking about creating a certification, not enforcing which orgs do and don't use it. A lot of software isn't important enough for such a thing, but a lot of it is. The point is that even when decision-makers do want software to be highly reliable, they have nothing but very blunt instruments for attempting to enforce that, because they're working in the dark.

The same technologically incompetent leaders who manage failed software projects are going to be the ones to write these standards/certifications.

The real problem is a lack of technologically competent leadership. Many of the skills required to excel at technology do not overlap with the skills required to be a good leader. Then, both technology and leadership are difficult skills to train and develop individually. And lastly, the few people who are competent technological leaders would rather work for big tech where they will get paid so much more and would not have to fight with technologically incompetent leadership to set up good standards.

Re: Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

#260

Post by beezle » Thu, May 21, 2020, 7:23 PM UTC

NikolaNovak wrote: post #46

crazygringo wrote: post #4

I thought iOS was supposed to convert HEIC images to JPEG automatically behind-the-scenes in any file transfer situation where HEIC isn't supported. The article itself even says: > iPhones convert HEICs to JPEGs automatically when they’re attached to emails in the Mail app I'm just curious technically why the same didn't happen with the testing portal? If you have a webpage that accepts image uploads, is iOS Safari n…

FWIW, as is the norm, my experience is that it works brilliantly --as long as you stay within apple defaults. As soon as I stray from golden path - text using anything but Apple MEssages, email using anything but apple mail, post using anything but safari, use/process with anything but Apple Photos - HEIC has been an absolute positive pain in my keister ;-( Other people may have more luck; note that my work iPhone is…

Which is why IOS should default to sending JPG or PNG to/between any non-bespoke Apple product until such a time that HEIC is universally common. That should be transparent to both the end-user as well as the receiving end.

One can moan about the test site not being more robust/careful but it is Apple/Samsung that are using the new, non-standard format and expecting others to accomodate in short order.