FW: Processing Password Questions

[Brian K. White]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Fairlight" <fairlite at fairlite.com>
To: "Filepro-List" <filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2005 12:48 PM
Subject: Re: FW: Processing Password Questions


> On Thu, Dec 29, 2005 at 12:10:53PM -0500, after drawing runes in goat's 
> blood,
> Nancy Palmquist cast forth these immortal, mystical words:
>>
>> I realize you are feeling a little annoyed.  But I find this response
>> very rude.
>
> Your interpretation.

Mine too.

>
>> The reason these get assigned incorrectly is people do not know they did
>> it.  There is a choice on the menu.  They choose it for some reason -
>> did not understand what it did, or thought it did something else or just
>> hit a wrong key (I like the cat on the keyboard option myself).  In
>
> THANK YOU for making my point for me:  USER ERROR.
>
> I believe I already said that.

So you are saying that it's better to allow the possibility of a an error 
condition to come into existence (site password gets created), and further 
to propogate a worse error condition (incorrect site password gets attached 
to prc tables), all without anyone knowing it, and your proposed plan for 
avoiding this is to rely on all human operators to be perfect forever?
Instead of arranging things such that the error condition simply cannot 
exist without both immediately making itself known, and in the bargain, 
making it impossible for the worse error condition to happen at all?

This from the person who feels no shame lecturing everyone else about 
security and competence and logic etc...?

Brian K. White  --  brian at aljex.com  --  http://www.aljex.com/bkw/
+++++[>+++[>+++++>+++++++<<-]<-]>>+.>.+++++.+++++++.-.[>+<---]>++.
filePro  BBx    Linux  SCO  FreeBSD    #callahans  Satriani  Filk!



>
>> The discussion was to illuminate the use, function and pitfalls.  I am
>> sure it is entirely outside your experience when due to ignorance or
>> curiosity something happens you do not expect.
>
> I either 1) don't futz with something that I'm not familiar with, 2) I 
> read
> up on it in advance so I -do- know WTH I'm going to be doing, or 3) if I
> really and truly screwed up, I track down the cause and make damned sure I
> never do it again.  Option 3 is a last resort fallback position.
>
>> I interact with many programmers and when they do not understand a
>> feature it is usually avoided.  That does not mean they could not find
>> it useful, they just don't understand the correct function or use of the
>> feature.
>
> Sure.  Some dingbat at university scared me into believing NFS was major
> black majik voodoo.  I avoided it for another five years before I needed
> it, read the docs, and said, "Jesus, this is so bloody trivial, why the
> hell did they say it was hard?!"  Actually -reading- TFM generally helps
> alleviate a lot of avoidance and misunderstandings.  I mean, it's all 
> there
> somewhere, in black and white (or the current screen colours).
>
>> So I clearly resent your implication that people that posted questions
>> about the feature "don't know enough to figure it out for themselves".
>> That was the entire point of the discussion.  Bob's request for a vote
>> in no way clarifes the issue just the general use of the responders of
>> the features.  What was certainly helpful to the poster was the
>> reason(s) each voter had for their preference.
>
> Apparently I snipped too quickly, Jay misattributed (doubtful), or
> someone's mailer didn't bother with an attirbution.  I'd have sworn that
> you were the one that called for the vote.  I stand corrected.
>
>> So instead of trying to restrict discussion, sit on your hands, when all
>> you want to say is stop posting to the list.  You are not responsible
>> for how a discussion unfolds and can delete any message or ignore any
>> thread that you are finding particularly redundant.
>
> Pot.  Kettle.  'nuff said.
>
>> I had my say on this.
>
> Nancy, you give good advice.  You should listen to yourself more often. 
> :)
>
> mark->
> _______________________________________________
> Filepro-list mailing list
> Filepro-list at lists.celestial.com
> http://mailman.celestial.com/mailman/listinfo/filepro-list
>