Author: Vincent Diepeveen
Date: 11:11:43 04/07/04
Go up one level in this thread
On April 06, 2004 at 18:03:49, Dann Corbit wrote: >On April 06, 2004 at 17:53:58, Vincent Diepeveen wrote: > >>On April 06, 2004 at 17:07:42, Sune Fischer wrote: >> >>>>>Editing one line in the winboard ini-file is not rocket science, not even for >>>>>techno-phobes I think. >>>> >>>>It's just something 99.9% of the customers is not capable of doing. >>> >>>You're just making up numbers, the number is distorted because you never hear >>>complaints from those who succeed. >>> >>>>First of all they have *no clue* that they must modify it. >>> >>>It is possible they have no clue, but then they won't have much use for a chess >>>engine either. It goes hand in hand at some level. >>> >>>>>Arena can scan your harddrive for available engines, so all you have to do is >>>>>download them and unzip them. >>>> >>>>You still must find that button to do it and know it has that capability or it >>>>won't succeed. >>> >>>Of course, and if they can't they have much bigger problems anyway, like how to >>>find the "power on" switch :) >>> >>>Seriously. >>>You are expecting programmers to design software for users >>>*) who are scared of techno, >>>*) who can't install from a CD, >>>*) who doesn't know what a file is, >>>*) who can't browse a menu and >>>*) who can't push buttons. >> >>If software just must take into account those points then it's still easy to >>create software. Software also needs to be >> >>*) foolproof > >This is a laudable goal, but even with a validated Ada compiler and MIL-STD-498 >conformance, Arianne 5 still went "Kaboom" > >The most stringent programs in the world with costs of hundreds of dollars per >line of code still have defects. > >So I think terms like "fullproof", "bulletproof", "bug-free" etc. are never >going to be fully realized. Even if you spent one million dollars per routine >and did formal proving of every algorithm and every line, the proof can also >have a defect. > >That's on the one hand. On the other hand, we should aim for foolproof as >nearly as we can approximate it. Let's not make fritz as the software standard. I bought fritz8, installed it. dang crash. Because i had 1GB ram instead of <= 512 :) Other machines it crashes continuesly too. DIEP's GUI doesn't crash that easy. You really must mess up your DLL's a lot before something can happen. However compared to the Fischer standards, chessbase is heaven, because users at least managed to *install* the product :) >>Because in general a reasonable % of the users after installing new software >>product is getting an information overload. the reaction that happens then is at >>best described as: "Utter panic and clicking all clickable areas until the >>software shows some type of response they recognize. Usually combined with 100 >>times pressing the ENTER key" >> >>>Good luck writing software to these people, I give up on those. >> >>Don't worry, i happily create software that's foolproof. >> >>>Luckly, I think we are dealing with a minory among the computer chess interested >>>folks! >> >>Computerchess is a technical sport. >> >>If you do not see the average chessproduct user as a computerchess enthusiast, >>because he doesn't know much from computers, then there is something very wrong >>with you. >> >>>-S.
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