IT Bugbears

[jmo21]

Having keyboard focus stolen while I am typing, usually by something I started 5 mins ago that has taken that long to get going.

Anti virus / anti malware software that causes my computer to grind to a halt, contributing to the problem above.

Not having lots of RAM and a speedy hard disk / SSD on client laptop.

I suffer from all of these on my tulipey client co PC.

[d000hg]

Internet explorer 6- when clientco forces this as the only option

FTFY.

[russell]

Minimal requirements but expect an exact estimate, then as the requirements grow and change you are still expected to deliver.

[Sysman]

American spelling generally. Since doing HTML I can never spell centre or colour properly.

Bad spelling, even in American English, which is so entrenched that it will probably never get fixed.

A prime example is "referer" in Apache logs.

Websites that offer you French or German, just because your IP address is in Switzerland, when you KNOW for sure they have an English version of the site.

Google are one of the worst offenders here. When they first implemented this they also did a redirect to your country site, which was rubbish if you were trying to lookup stuff in your home country. Perhaps because I'm not in Basel, they give me German only. I went through a nightmare a few years ago trying to dig out Google webmaster help in English for someone in the UK.

You can of course use the settings dialogue in Google to select the language of your choice, but that means accepting a cookie, and there's been plenty of debate about the lifetime settings of Google cookies.

Vista. (On one client's laptop).

Fortunately I've only had to deal with Vista the once.

And another entry for the list. Fired up Firefox and it finds a new version of NoScript. But that addons dialogue sits firmly in front of my Safari window and I can't ignore it. I hate stuff which demands that I break off what I am doing. I shall start calling this behaviour "ME. ME. ME. software".

[cybersquatter]

Adobe Updater.

The way Windows decides that installing 26 updates is far more important than me being able to shut down my laptop when I'm already late for my flight home on a Friday afternoon. "Please do not switch off or unplug your computer" - **** off!

[SimonMac]

No IT, means no IT Contractors, No IT Contractors means no CUK Forums, no CUK Forums means no Russel.

Does that count as a Bugbear?

[NickFitz]

Bad spelling, even in American English, which is so entrenched that it will probably never get fixed.

A prime example is "referer" in Apache logs.

That's actually a speeling mistoke originally perpetrated by that fine Englishman Sir Tim Berners-Lee during his time at CERN in Switzerland, when he defined the HTTP protocol; it's been retained ever since (although with a self-deprecating "[sic]" in HTTP 1.1) for the sake of backwards compatibility. No American English involved, and no, it won't get fixed

[NickFitz]

• Ditto with web apps who assume the local language based on your IP address.

That becomes particularly idiotic in such cases as the friend of mine who works in Milton Keynes, but whose employer routes their web access through a proxy in Madrid, meaning he often gets sites trying to force him to accept their Spanish version. I've had German foisted on me when in Cambridge, due to using an O2 dongle which was for some unexplained reason proxying via the Fatherland.

[scooterscot]

Using windows OS. I look for the dashboard, there is none. I edit a e-mail in outlook and I want to refer to an older e-mail as I type but the outlook screen is frozen until I send the e-mail I'm working on!!! What backward thinking.

[OwlHoot]

That's actually a speeling mistoke originally perpetrated by that fine Englishman Sir Tim Berners-Lee during his time at CERN in Switzerland, when he defined the HTTP protocol; it's been retained ever since (although with a self-deprecating "[sic]" in HTTP 1.1) for the sake of backwards compatibility. No American English involved, and no, it won't get fixed

OK, but why not allow "referrer" as an equialent? "Rigorous in what you output, liberal in what you accept" and all that (not that I agree with the second half)

Some of my bugbears:

SOAP - The slightest mistake, and you get a huge screed of gibberish error text that gives not the faintest clue to what is wrong or where.

Java - ditto, a two hundred-line stack dump each time (which at least gives a hint of where something went wrong but little else)

Why can't anal language and interface designers realise that informative, categoric error messages for humans are far more important in time saving and reliability than their obsessive desire for technical purity, consistency and other such abstract nonsense?