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Calling all engineers: Computers are stupid!

fboender

This is a call to all software engineers. The lesson for today is:

Computers are stupid.

So if you're thinking about implementing some auto-correcting functionality in your new shiny feature-packed word processor… don't. Computers are stupid. I am smart. Compared to a computer, I am infinitely smart. That means computers can't automatically correct me. At least, not properly. Automatic corrections will be wrong in 90% of the cases.What you can do though, is hint at me that I've made a booboo, which I can then correct myself! Or I can tell the computer: "Right, I keep making that mistake! You can correct it for me from now on without asking me"

WordPress: Don't automatically change single or double ASCII quotes to Unicode characters unless I ask for it. Especially don't do it when I'm applying the 'literal' style to a piece of text. "Literal" literally means literal. Chances are that I want things I type to appear, well, literally. Programming code might make a good example. I don't think many languages yet understand unicode quotes yet.
Word/Open Office: Don't automatically convert everything I type into something else. If I type "1.", don't assume I want to make a list. I'm not a fucking retard. If I want a list, I'll select my text and bash the 'List' button in the toolbar. Don't automatically upper-case the letter of a new sentence for me. It's a computer, and computers are notoriously bad at lexical analysis or human languages. You see, in Dutch it is required to end an abbreviation with a period. So "i.e." is not the end of a sentence. Don't automatically convert anything for me, please. Please!

Software engineers, at the very least make sure that when I undo one of your automatic conversions, and start typing again not to apply the same automatic correction again! Some simple user-experience testing should have picked up on that.

Honestly, I think mankind was more productive when it was still carving shit on rock faces in caves then it is today with computers. Cavemen inventing fire and wheels and whatnot. People with computers, what do they invent? Shit to solve problems that wouldn't have existed without computers in the first place, that's what. But hey, at least we're leveraging business synergy, right?

Posted in Software Bashing.

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2 Responses

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  1. Polprav says

    Hello from Russia!
    Can I quote a post in your blog with the link to you?

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