software development

unix

UNIX will never be usable

A few months ago, Eric Raymond, the open source guru best known for his seminal paper, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, posted a rant about the difficulty he encountered with a common user printing scenario in UNIX. The follow-up post is even more intriguing: I am informed that an RFE

By Jeff Atwood ·
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error messages

What’s worse than a Bad Error Message?

I’m sure I don’t have to explain what is wrong with error messages like this: Catastrophic Failure General Protection Fault Error: The operation completed successfully But as bad as those are, they pale in comparison to what is, hands down, the worst kind of error message: a beautiful,

By Jeff Atwood ·
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About... The About Box

.net

About... The About Box

You’d think someone would have written a decent, generic .NET About Box by now. Well, if it’s out there, I couldn’t find it! The About Box isn’t an essential part of any application, but my research (and practical experience) indicates it has two key uses: * For

By Jeff Atwood ·
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