Re: [vox-tech] Here's my project, please give me some feedback

[Dave Margolis <margolidMAPS@ecs.csus.edu>]

Jeff Newmiller wrote:

> On Sun, 18 Jul 2004, Kedar Soman wrote:
>
> > I am developing a website to log programming errors. The URL is as follows
> > http://kedar.freeshell.org/index.php
> > The reason for doing this is many times the error message tells us nothing
> > about what to do to correct the error. Google is the only option, which does
> > work mostly. But it would be good to have some website which tells us "what
> > folks have done when they faced certain error". This would be especially
> > good for novice programmers.
>
> My point above about trusting your input also applies to Google searching,
> and to your project as well, only in reverse.  When presented with error
> messages, Google tends to find questions in email/newsgroup threads, and I
> follow the thread to the end to find more and more refined answers to the
> problem.  From looking at your site, the answers given there represent the
> research of the people who originally encountered the problem... and they
> are posting their "aha!" solutions at the same time as the problem.  
I did tech support for for a number of years, and we used to call this the 
"voodoo" fix.  It was the fix that worked one or more times for one 
person.  Unfortunately, these voodoo fixes plauged our knowledge base and 
it was tough to differentiate tried and true (and/or official) fixes from 
the less than proven solutions.  I can see this being a problem with the 
error message repository in question.  If I can publically add solutions 
to problems in a public knowledge base without any credentials or without 
any governing review process, I can publish fixes with any of the 
following problems:

1. Solutions that worked for me because of some coincidence (aka the 
phallacy of false cause and effect).  For example "uninstalling version 
1.7, reinsalling version 1.6, and then rebooting fixes the problem". 
wrong!  Rebooting fixed the problem.

2. Solutions that seemed to work for me are poorly communicated or just 
plain wrong, and by following my suggestions you'll either waste your time 
or perhaps even damange your system or cause loss of data.

3. Deliberatly malicous incorrect fixes for common problems.  I can see 
this being similar to some of the socially engineered virus-type schemes 
like phishing.  It wouldn't be tough to do either: just find some common 
but nasty error message and post a solution that asks the user to delete 
some critical file, or install some fake patch, or whatever else.  Of 
course it's ultimately up to the user to use common sense and do proper 
research, but it's a possibility to consider.

Just some thoughts about potential pitfalls...I'm not trying to be 
critical in any way.

Dave



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