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You can't do that because I hate you

bvisness.me

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Re: You can't do that because I hate you

#2

Post by eurleif »

>I understand that might be confusing for newcomers, and exiting might be too destructive. But denying you the normal REPL behavior and denying you the ability to exit is just insulting.

Sentence 1 provides a clear justification for the behavior. Then sentence 2 declares, by bare assertion, that it's "insulting".

I find sentence 1 more persuasive than sentence 2.

Re: You can't do that because I hate you

#3

Post by mrblampo »

First example seems odd? The author acknowledges that the two proposed alternatives (printing "" or actually exiting) aren't great. The fact that the Python REPL provides a helpful hint seems like extra effort to make your life easier. This is especially notable given that in the next example, the author's complaint is about a command _not_ providing special guidance about the thing the user is probably trying to do.

Re: You can't do that because I hate you

#5

Post by pluc »

mrblampo wrote: post #3

First example seems odd? The author acknowledges that the two proposed alternatives (printing " " or actually exiting) aren't great. The fact that the Python REPL provides a helpful hint seems like extra effort to make your life easier. This is especially notable given that in the next example, the author's complaint is about a command _not_ providing special guidance about the thing the user is probably trying to do…

Yeah. "I know it's not right, but it's not totally wrong and probably better than not doing anything" actions as maddening as the behaviour he describes. A world where that's the standard would be chaos.

When you work with _precise_ systems, they sometime take _precise_ input to work. That's kinda just part of the job.

Re: You can't do that because I hate you

#6

Post by zem »

the trouble with "do what I mean" is that if the software guesses, and guesses wrong, the results are far worse than just not doing it. an "if you really meant to do this here is the correct incantation" error message seems like the best possible thing to do.

Re: You can't do that because I hate you

#7

Post by avg_dev »

I feel this post. I can relate.

I once said - and still maintain - that all devs need a life-long lesson in empathy. For our users and our library consumers and so on.

It will be impossible to fix every conceivable issue and sometimes we will have to deprecate or break backward compatibility or features or whatever. But if maybe some more effort to understand and respect our users was made as a matter of course, then when we are users we will be more inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to the developer who created the thing.

Also the post made me laugh.

Re: You can't do that because I hate you

#8

Post by dale_glass »

mrblampo wrote: post #3

First example seems odd? The author acknowledges that the two proposed alternatives (printing " " or actually exiting) aren't great. The fact that the Python REPL provides a helpful hint seems like extra effort to make your life easier. This is especially notable given that in the next example, the author's complaint is about a command _not_ providing special guidance about the thing the user is probably trying to do…

I'd have done both the hint and the actual result. Like this:

    >>> print
    
    >>> exit
    
    Hint: Use exit() or Ctrl-D (i.e. EOF) to exit
    >>>
This way, it does do the thing you literally asked for, but also does help a newbie out.

Re: You can't do that because I hate you

#9

Post by et1337 »

The last example is actually a great argument in favor of this “user-unfriendly” mindset. The removal of that CLI flag forced the user to actually figure out the root cause of the problem rather than paper it over with a workaround they didn’t really understand, which would inevitably metastasize and explode later in an even more frustrating way.

All of these examples are devs trying to make sure users understand what’s going on. Nothing wrong with that when it is necessary complexity. The trouble I think comes when you’re making sure the user understands something that really shouldn’t matter - unnecessary complexity. Especially complexity that is just a byproduct of a disorganized group of people building a “bazaar”, like in the Node ecosystem (and apparently Rust too). Who cares if X is actually a fork of Y that was merged into Z.

Re: You can't do that because I hate you

#10

Post by jgilias »

Such a weird rant. Yes, some tools do some things, but not others. Making tools do everything for everyone just bloats them to unmaintainable messes. And it’s a special kind of entitlement to believe that the way _I_ imagine things must be working is the only possible correct interpretation.

Reality is messy, there are trade-offs, and a lot of smart people think very hard about what the correct trade-offs should be given a particular situation.

And, the last pet peeve of mine. If I got a dime every time someone says ‘why don’t you just’ without even beginning to start to realize the depth of an issue, I’d be a very rich man. That’s about this quote here:

> What would it possibly take to “stabilize” such a feature? It is a completely trivial feature!

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