I've seen this sort of thing in a few places, and I really do think it's a great idea.
Type in the exact number of machines to proceed
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Re: Type in the exact number of machines to proceed
#12Reminds me of the proposal to keep the nuclear launch codes inside the body of an innocent volunteer, so the President would have to kill the person to get the codes.
https://boingboing.net/2015/12/11/proposal-keep-the-nuclear-...
Re: Type in the exact number of machines to proceed
#13I've seen this called "pointing and calling" [1], Japan's train drivers use the technique to force themselves to perform actions and take notice of the current environment. I personally took it to heart, it's a good system for forcing a cache miss in the brain - make sure you're on "database production" or "database localhost" etc. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_and_calling
Worth mentioning that, assuming the single study on the matter can be believed, the pointing and calling method is extremely effective in reducing the incidence of silly mistakes (that is, mistakes made in simple routine tasks, by competent individuals).
Unfortunately, it strikes many as looking rather silly, so it hasn't been widely adopted.
Re: Type in the exact number of machines to proceed
#14Similar idea as GitHub's "type the exact name of this repository if you want to delete it" confirmation dialog. Maybe that's really what you want to do, but in case that's not actually what you meant to do, having a few extra hoops to jump through seems like a good idea.
> having a few extra hoops to jump through seems like a good idea.
I think that there is more to that. You need to consciously type the name of the repo that you want to remove. Windows used to add a lot of jumps to get something done, and the result was mindless clicking the "yes" button and realizing 1 second later that you deleted important information.
That extra hoops need to be cognitive meaningful.
Re: Type in the exact number of machines to proceed
#15Terraform prints out the number of resources changed and at least requires a "yes" to proceed. Not quite as onerous as described but at least prevents some type of fat-fingering. Basically all changes with Terraform are risky as they usually involved bringing up and down infrastructure. Terraform will perform the following actions: # google_compute_instance.vm_instance will be created + resource "google_compute_insta…
IaC is a real time saver, but inherently dangerous.
Re: Type in the exact number of machines to proceed
#16[deleted]
Re: Type in the exact number of machines to proceed
#17Terraform prints out the number of resources changed and at least requires a "yes" to proceed. Not quite as onerous as described but at least prevents some type of fat-fingering. Basically all changes with Terraform are risky as they usually involved bringing up and down infrastructure. Terraform will perform the following actions: # google_compute_instance.vm_instance will be created + resource "google_compute_insta…
This is exactly the problem the author is referring to. With Terraform, you always type "yes" to proceed, so it turns into muscle memory. You stop reading the output, and you're already typing "yes" before you even see the prompt. Terraform's output is also verbose, and many changes show up as "1 to add, 0 to change, 1 to destroy" because they don't separately list a "replace" category. It's pretty bad; you've got cognitive overload, confusing output summary, and a predetermined continue answer. And this is often an action you're performing under duress. I've been bitten by it plenty of times.
Re: Type in the exact number of machines to proceed
#18Makes it harder to nest that command inside a script - you have to parse out the number and paste it back? Or do I misunderstand - should it still prompt the user in the middle of the process when that step arrives? That would be problematical if it were included in a web page or whatever.
Hopefully there’s an API to fetch that count :)
Re: Type in the exact number of machines to proceed
#19Similar idea as GitHub's "type the exact name of this repository if you want to delete it" confirmation dialog. Maybe that's really what you want to do, but in case that's not actually what you meant to do, having a few extra hoops to jump through seems like a good idea.
> having a few extra hoops to jump through seems like a good idea. I think that there is more to that. You need to consciously type the name of the repo that you want to remove. Windows used to add a lot of jumps to get something done, and the result was mindless clicking the "yes" button and realizing 1 second later that you deleted important information. That extra hoops need to be cognitive meaningful.
Yes, and infrequent; the main issue with Windows (Vista mainly) was that it appeared far too often. Even with 7, when you're setting it up for the first time for example, I think it shows up too often.
Same with Terms & Conditions. If you want your customers to truly have read and understood them, you have to show them a short quiz at the end of it. You're required to do a quiz in Europe nowadays if you want to engage in stock trading.
Re: Type in the exact number of machines to proceed
#20I wish it were possible for similar prompts to appear before all sorts of policy-makers and bureaucrats. "It appears you are about to institute a policy which will require 400 million patients to sign an additional waiver every time they visit a clinic, this will waste a total of 354,921 human hours within the next year alone. Please type 354,921 to proceed."
Yeah, it's quite surreal. "Hey, privacy is important, so let it make so that to handle people's private data, you'll need a permission from them". All right, now whenever you try to e.g. send a (paper) mail, you have to sign the waiver that yes, you do allow the post office to see and handle your name and your mail address. Not only that, all such waivers seem to be written as "I hereby allow to handle my private data in whatever way they want to", so we're back on square one, just with more perfunctory paperwork required.