An apologetic old program

This gave me a good chuckle — I ran into this recently on the old systems I still work on (yes, this comes from a terminal session!):

          Transaction Editing Database
              Charge Batch Proof

THIS ACTIVITY PROVIDES DETAIL VOUCHER INFORMATION BY
SELECTED BATCH NUMBER(S).

     HOW DO YOU WANT YOUR BATCH PROOF SORTED
               A. BY NUMBER
               B. BY PATIENT

          PLEASE SELECT A OR B : B

Sorry this portion of the program is being fixed !!!

Please selection A from the option menu.

Thank you for using the TE Batch Proof System

In short, I selected option B, only to be presented with the last three lines above.  This program first apologizes that B is not a working option and is currently being fixed (which is news to me – the last time I can tell that any programmer did any significant work to it was 10 years ago).  Then, it directs me to option A (why even bother listing an option B in the first place?).  And then perhaps my favorite part, it thanks me for using this system, apparently not realizing that it neglected to produce any useful output for me.

So, apparently, what we can learn from this is that if you don’t plan to eventually finish your program, at least make it sound like a pleasant convenience store worker.

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Outlook logoI’m so chalk full of email pointers that I thought that I’d share some more. Incidentally, not all of these are as relatable to the new forms of internet communication as my last list (e.g., the idea of “read receipts” doesn’t quite make sense in something like Facebook… though they might surprise me one day with another one of their privacy-challenged new features). And so, here’s another list of email DON’Ts: (more…)

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