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Dumb website only lets one user in at a time

imherefor.me

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Re: Dumb website only lets one user in at a time

#91

Post by 6510 »

notatoad wrote: post #28
mglz wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whcih ones and why? Wierd load balancing? Or dumb bureaucracy?

we implement one for event registration. without queuing, you end up with some hidden complexity around whether a ticket in a cart counts towards the limit or not, and when it goes back into the available pool if that cart doesn't check out in time. none of it is too difficult to implement, but it is difficult to explain to users and creates experiences that frustrate people are or are perceived as unfair. for exampl…

I remember first time writing a web-shop I thought things would be reasonably static. Gradually I changed my mind, it is more like a first person shooter. The new product sticks it's head around the corner and the first one to shoot it gets the kill but it only counts if you make it safely though the transaction in time. Picking customization while the evaporate is like trying to land a head shot.

Re: Dumb website only lets one user in at a time

#93

Post by burntwater »

Freak_NL wrote: post #90
Doxin wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A local pizza place has a website that closes outside of business hours. Which is infuriating if you're trying to figure out business hours in the first place.

There is a Dutch chain of baby necessities which is owned by a fundamentalist Christian. You wouldn't know except for the infuriating message their websites (there where some mergers and I think this affects two large online shops) on Sunday, all day long, are closed because of the Sabbath. A multi million Euro business which just shuts down all of its websites on Sunday. The owner can apparently afford it, because I…

B&H (https://www.bhphotovideo.com/) is somewhat like this. Super popular business, but you can't order online on Saturdays. You can browse the website, just not place an order. Their physical store is also closed on Saturdays, and closes early on Fridays. They also close for days/weeks at a time for Jewish holidays.

Re: Dumb website only lets one user in at a time

#94

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

nso wrote: post #75
bb88 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. I remember those days. Oh how my parents hated me for running up the long distance bills.

I see this mentioned a lot, but how large would you actually rack up the bills in today's dollars?

When I was in college, someone discovered that you could call 1-900 phone sex lines from the pay phones for the cost of a local call and the college would be billed for the phone charges since the phone was in their name. People were racking up thousands of dollars in charges until the school started placing "observers" near the phones to nab whoever was calling them.

Made "examples" of a few unfortunate students until they could fix the problem internally.

Re: Dumb website only lets one user in at a time

#95

Post by appplication »

jesprenj wrote: post #73
knodi123 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha. When I moved into my town, the public library's online book search was only turned on from 9-5, monday through saturday. Apparently it was so unstable they didn't want anyone trying to use it unless they had an IT guy on hand? I'm guessing? Anyway, they eventually outsourced to bibliocommons, but oy, what a ridiculous limitation to have as late as 2007.

The official government website for accessing information about property ownership information in Slovenia only works during working hours -- mon-fri 8h-20h.

It seems like it would be more work to implement a website that shuts down depending on time of day than just leave it up.

Re: Dumb website only lets one user in at a time

#96

Post by retzkek »

sentientslug wrote: post #56
bityard wrote: post #40

Not at all the same thing I admit, but the company I work for has a product that limits the number of transactions (per user) to 1. Where "transaction" is roughly equivalent to an HTTP request. So if you run a query that takes 30 seconds, get bored, open up a new tab to do something else in the product, your new tab will hang until the transaction in the previous tab has completed. I hate it. There is a special URL t…

This sounds like ServiceNow… if it is I’d love to know that special URL.

Seems to be documented, surprisingly: .service-now.com/cancel_my_transaction.do" rel="nofollow">https://.service-now.com/cancel_my_transaction.do

https://support.servicenow.com/kb?id=kb_article_view&sysparm...

Or you can type “cancel_my_transaction.do” in the navigator filter bar. Related tip: you can quickly bring up any table by typing “table_name.list” (s/.do/.list/ from the single-item url) there instead of poking around for a link. “sys_user.list” is probably the one I use most often.

Re: Dumb website only lets one user in at a time

#97

Post by bobbiechen »

appplication wrote: post #95
jesprenj wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The official government website for accessing information about property ownership information in Slovenia only works during working hours -- mon-fri 8h-20h.

It seems like it would be more work to implement a website that shuts down depending on time of day than just leave it up.

https://bobbiechen.com/blog/2022/7/21/what-if-your-website-h... - but think about the (tiny) infrastructure savings!

Re: Dumb website only lets one user in at a time

#98

Post by willcipriano »

bityard wrote: post #40

Not at all the same thing I admit, but the company I work for has a product that limits the number of transactions (per user) to 1. Where "transaction" is roughly equivalent to an HTTP request. So if you run a query that takes 30 seconds, get bored, open up a new tab to do something else in the product, your new tab will hang until the transaction in the previous tab has completed. I hate it. There is a special URL t…

I'd wager the overhead of manging a mutex to see if a user is currently using their transaction is greater than the occasional second transaction a user may occasionally invoke in most situations.

Re: Dumb website only lets one user in at a time

#99

Post by bb88 »

nso wrote: post #75
bb88 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. I remember those days. Oh how my parents hated me for running up the long distance bills.

I see this mentioned a lot, but how large would you actually rack up the bills in today's dollars?

$200 roughly.

https://www.amortization.org/inflation/amount.php?year=1984&...

Re: Dumb website only lets one user in at a time

#100

Post by Doxin »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #70
Doxin wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A local pizza place has a website that closes outside of business hours. Which is infuriating if you're trying to figure out business hours in the first place.

So its running on a computer in their restaurant, and someone shuts it off when they leave. : - )

Oh no not at all. The site just shows a notice that the site is closed. None of the other pages work anymore but the server is clearly still running.
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