Tuesday
Mar072006
Sorry Software
Tuesday, March 7, 2006 at 10:54PM
There are some things which are guaranteed to drive me into a blinding rage. No really. And one of them is software which says it is sorry. I'm trying to get some tunes out of Napster and into my music player. Everything is right. Except that it won't work. It says "We are sorry, but we could not do this...". It then goes into an explanation which makes no sense and leads to no useful conclusion. I'm used to that bit.
But the way that software now feels the need to say how sorry it is when it fails drives me up the wall. It can't be sorry. It is a machine running a program. OK, a person wrote the program, but they are obviously an idiot (otherwise the program would work). Do I feel better when an idiot (who is probably paid more than me) tells me, via his broken software, that he is sorry. I think not.
Is this supposed to make me feel better? Are there people who do like it when the machine says that for reasons of its own which it is not going to divulge but may well be down to some incompetence somewhere down the line it is sorry that it can't do the required thing. Where are these people? Do they want to buy shares in my oil well, microwave oven that changes lead into gold and perpetual motion machine?
Next thing that will happen is that software will start shifting the blame. "I'm sorry I could not do that, but you did press the keys rather hard just now so I don't feel at all bad about this....".
I think I'll go and have a lie down.
But the way that software now feels the need to say how sorry it is when it fails drives me up the wall. It can't be sorry. It is a machine running a program. OK, a person wrote the program, but they are obviously an idiot (otherwise the program would work). Do I feel better when an idiot (who is probably paid more than me) tells me, via his broken software, that he is sorry. I think not.
Is this supposed to make me feel better? Are there people who do like it when the machine says that for reasons of its own which it is not going to divulge but may well be down to some incompetence somewhere down the line it is sorry that it can't do the required thing. Where are these people? Do they want to buy shares in my oil well, microwave oven that changes lead into gold and perpetual motion machine?
Next thing that will happen is that software will start shifting the blame. "I'm sorry I could not do that, but you did press the keys rather hard just now so I don't feel at all bad about this....".
I think I'll go and have a lie down.
Reader Comments