Misused: Darth Wiki.Idiot Programming

From the description, this is specifically for programming examples of So Bad Its Horrible, but the page is littered with hardware examples (to the point of having a dedicated folder for them!) and just plain bad design choices (like the examples about the Virtual Boy and the PSP's square button), which have nothing whatsoever to do with programming. Either the page needs cleanup, or it needs to be renamed and re-described.

Opening.

Maybe the hardware examples could be moved to a separate page?

In any case, there are a couple of software examples in the "Hardware that Wears Hard on You" folder:

• The UEFI firmware on some Samsung laptops chokes and bricks itself if the operating system writes too many variables to the firmware's memory. It was soon discovered that "too many" was about 50%.
• Anytime your hardware has a firmware update, but the update utility is a Windows Executable and the system is running another OS such as Macintosh or any flavor of Linux. To do the firmware flash the right way, you'll probably have to remove the hardware, hook it up to a Windows machine and then run from there. To be fair, it is a reasonable guess that the system will be running Windows, but issues like this can fan the flames of anti-Microsoft sentiment among alternative OS markets (like Debian-Linux derivatives). In the 1990's, this problem was usually averted by having the firmware utility create a bootable DOS-like system with the flashing tool on the disc.

What page do you suggest for hardware issues?

Perhaps we could make a new page called "Idiot Design" or something for non-programming examples.

Creating a new page.

"Idiot Design" sounds pretty good.

Would this have to go through TLP?

If we make it, "Idiot Design" would have a much broader scope than just the hardware examples on Idiot Programming, so it might need to be TLP'd first.

Some examples from Horrible.Other and Horrible.Toys could potentially be transplanted over to Idiot Design if we go with that.

Maybe "Idiot Hardware Design"? That way it's restricted to hardware examples.

I don't see why it would be necessary to limit examples to electronic hardware.

I could get behind a Darth Wiki thing for "poor design." There's a plethora of advertising examples that I can think of, and restricting it to electronics seems unnecessary.

Also, shouldn't the "Operating Systems" and "Search Engines" folders from Horrible.Other be moved to Idiot Programming?

Windows ME is on both pages. Microsoft Bob isn't exactly Idiot Programming, since it does exactly what it was meant to do - it's just that what it does is stupid. cPedia could be moved to Idiot Programming.

It's been a while now. Any objections to me putting Idiot Design on TLP?

EDIT: It's done.

edited 30th Sep '17 10:43:03 AM by Zuxtron

Just a question that popped into my head: should the non-programming examples be cut? Idiot Design isn't launched yet, but that doesn't make these examples any less misuse. Should they stay there until it launches just in case, or should misuse be removed immediately?

I like the idea of the trope being expanded to Idiot Design to include non-programming examples. Would the trope's Sugar Wiki counterpart, Genius Programming, stay the same? I think everything on there now is programming-related.

Also, the firmware examples someone else mentioned should probably be resorted. Sure, firmware is directly tied to hardware, but it's still a type of software. I'd also like to add that the "To be fair" part of the second example reads like a Justifying Edit, so maybe it should be trimmed.

edited 8th Oct '17 9:53:54 PM by GastonRabbit

Genius Design could exist, if we found enough examples for it. Idiot Design has a lot of examples already because of all the misuse on Idiot Programming and So Bad, It's Horrible, but since Genius Programming doesn't have any misuse, it would take some more effort to find cases of awesomely designed things.

Since firmware is software, I removed the examples from the TLP draft. We can keep them in Idiot Programming, and just put them in a different folder.

The Idiot Design TLP has 5 hats, any extra comments before launch?

Is Idiot Design replacing Idiot Programming or is it a separate category for all the non-programming examples that ended up on the latter?

The second one. We're keeping Idiot Programming.

On a related note, the image on image links should be moved to Idiot Design, as it is a hardware issue.

edited 12th Oct '17 10:35:27 AM by bitemytail

Question about Idiot Design (which I'll also bring to the draft). Is it supposed to be specifically about hardware or does it include all flawed design choices? If the former, I think it needs a more clear name (something simple like Idiot Hardware Design).

It's about poor design choices in general.

If that's the case, there are probably a number of software items on Idiot Programming that belong on Idiot Design then.

Software goes through a development cycle in the same way hardware does.

Design is the concept, Programming is the execution/performance. So, any idea that is flawed by concept would be best on Idiot Design.

At a quick glance - looking for software entries that are about bad software design:

• Adobe Dreamweaver is a design issue (it's in the documentation, so they implemented it knowingly)
• Adobe Photoshop also discusses the design of the software, rather than shoddy programming.
• iTunes could go either way. We don't know if the issues mentioned are intentional (bad design) or not (bad implementation)
• Apple task manager sounds like a design problem as written.
• Apple Music is clearly a design issue. The software does exactly what it is supposed to. It's just design to do really stupid things.
• Google Chrome separate tabs being their own process is a design decision.
• Google Voice / Google Customer Service doesn't seem to fit either category. I would place it in the Design category if I had to choose. One would think Google would've mandated (requirements being close to design) that Google Voice work for customer support.
• Android resetting needing a Google account is a design decision. The issue with needing an old password is potentially a software decision (I can't image Google did that intentionally)
• Wakelocks sound like a design decision. Could be programming, depends on how Google's internal documentation phrases it (and I don't have the documents to check).

edited 17th Oct '17 7:53:32 AM by bitemytail

Adobe Dreamweaver seems like poor programming, where they weren't able to fix the bug in time and had to give users this workaround instead. I doubt that they would intentionally design the program to crash when opening certain files.

Google Voice seems like poor design, if they made it so a Google product can't be used to call Google for help.

I can see that for Dreamweaver.

We both agree on Google Voice being design.

I was trying to make a different point; Idiot Design and Idiot Programming could potentially have overlap as written, especially to users who aren't familiar with the development cycle (IE - people who don't know the difference between programming/construction and design). We should make the names clearer, to prevent misuse.

Idiot Programming sounds flexible enough to include the gray area of design and programming for programs and apps, honestly.