Binu Jose Philip's Weblog

JES and another installer

JES installer in text mode. Ugliest, most useless of
all installers of all time. If there is a user surly
award, JES should surely get the award.

Yes and Y and Enter and 1 and A, it is a menagerie of
choices with the same meaning. But none of them can
be intermixed.

While I am in the topic of installers. Recently I had
to make a choice against my wish where installer could
use a new feature and using this feature would allow an
existing error to be eliminated. The install would use
the new feature and proceed. That would hide one more
question from the user and that I thought a good thing.

But surprise surprise. It was decided that the existing
error must be replaced by a screen to inform the user of
the alternative *and* get his confirmation to use the new
feature. If he says  "No" install would fail. The screen
would say

"""
Error, can't install unless I use feature 'X'".
Use feature "Yes/No"?
"""

I translate the second line as:

Fail install so I can throw an error "Yes/No"?

Logic? Existing customers could depend on the install
failing and hence we should not change the behavior.
All newcomers are lemmings anyway. *We* design only
for existing users!

With this excellent logic in place, I can foresee the
future where every new feature will need multiple menu
choices which says only "Fail/Succeed">.

Posted at 05:29AM May 03, 2008 by binujp in verbal diarrhea  |