I've often wondered why most sites expose these status codes to the end user. The end user does not need to know, and in most cases will probably be confused by it. Plainly worded messages should be presented in the case of errors, not half an RFC.
HTTP Status Dogs (2011)
21–30 of 44 posts
Re: HTTP Status Dogs (2011)
#22Might be okay on a humour site, or perhaps in an internal tool, but some of these are a bit tasteless IMO. It could be far more useful if you were able to pick from a selection of individual images or image sets depending on the usecase. Although even then these kinds of http error images scream early-2000s web humour to me.
> Although even then these kinds of http error images scream early-2000s web humour to me.
I think that's the point and it's a nice throwback :)
But otherwise I agree, https://http.cat/ is far more harmless. Some of those dog pictures would probably not fare well when a less humorous colleague sees them.
Re: HTTP Status Dogs (2011)
#23I've often wondered why most sites expose these status codes to the end user. The end user does not need to know, and in most cases will probably be confused by it. Plainly worded messages should be presented in the case of errors, not half an RFC.
It makes it a ton easier to assist the user when they come to support (“It’s broken” doesn’t go very far, knowing it’s a 500 for instance can help fast track the demand, whatever the actual problem is).
Of course it doesn’t stop you from rendering a nice and plainly worded error.
Re: HTTP Status Dogs (2011)
#24Re: HTTP Status Dogs (2011)
#25One surprisingly practical use I found for things like this; when internal tools throw up a 404 or a 503 with the usual default status page, people assume "oh it's not working, I'll try again later". When they get an unexpected cat (or dog, in this case) they tend to go and ask their tech team, "what's with the cat?" It's not a substitute for good logging and alerting in any way, and is totally unsuitable for environ…
Plus it’s gonna send a lot more data over the network. A typical 404 is just a few lines of text. But these are an entire image blob.
Re: HTTP Status Dogs (2011)
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
http.cat is surprisingly useful because of the short url. Typing in e.g. http.cat/422 beats any other method I know for quickly looking up status codes by number.
Just type in "error 422" and a Google snippet tells you what it is. Saves 3 characters, doesn't depend on a single website, and returns a more descriptive paragraph instead of some silly image with no relevance...
Disagree. It effectively does depend on a single website.
Re: HTTP Status Dogs (2011)
#27Might be okay on a humour site, or perhaps in an internal tool, but some of these are a bit tasteless IMO. It could be far more useful if you were able to pick from a selection of individual images or image sets depending on the usecase. Although even then these kinds of http error images scream early-2000s web humour to me.
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Re: HTTP Status Dogs (2011)
#28I've often wondered why most sites expose these status codes to the end user. The end user does not need to know, and in most cases will probably be confused by it. Plainly worded messages should be presented in the case of errors, not half an RFC.
You can set custom pages for all of those, and they can be helpful and informative.
An Error 500 page used in an internal service could tell you something like "Try again in 5 minutes, and call Joe if it still doesn't work".
An Error 410 page can spell out "We used to have this, but don't anymore because it was obsolete. Please look here for a replacement instead."
The defaults are just that, simple defaults, and these days typically overriden by the web browser to show something more user friendly.
Re: HTTP Status Dogs (2011)
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just type in "error 422" and a Google snippet tells you what it is. Saves 3 characters, doesn't depend on a single website, and returns a more descriptive paragraph instead of some silly image with no relevance...
Disagree. It effectively does depend on a single website.
I just entered "error 422" into DDG and got a useful result so if you interpret the parent post as "use your favorite search engine" then it doesn't depend on a single website.
Re: HTTP Status Dogs (2011)
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just type in "error 422" and a Google snippet tells you what it is. Saves 3 characters, doesn't depend on a single website, and returns a more descriptive paragraph instead of some silly image with no relevance...
Disagree. It effectively does depend on a single website.
And for something non-critical I would rather depend on a quirky independent website than on google. I want the internet to be more than six companies dominating everything.