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Bugging

I spend a small amount of my job creating bug reports for the software that I document. Most of the bugs that I create involve faulty screen text that the mostly foreign-born software testers and developers don’t pick up on. Engineers, bless ’em, just don’t see a difference between “Inspected Date” and “Inspection Date.” They’re not bothered by a single dollar figure called “Total Costs.” Email, E-Mail, E-mail, and EMail look exactly the same to them.
Bugs involving user interface nuances are regarded as nit-picky and low priority. My mentality is: how can clients trust our software’s core functionality when they’re distracted by our wildly inconsistent use of the terms “add” and “create?”
I won’t hold back on logging bugs for spelling and grammar mistakes, but inconsistent capitalization is one offense that I’ve laid off so not as to incur too much wrath. Today’s bug of the day – “ID, not Id” – was an exception.
“Bug Description: The ID field is displaying on the user interface as ‘Id’, not ‘ID.’ ‘ID’ is a means of identification. ‘Id’ is the part of the psyche, residing in the unconscious, that is the source of instinctive impulses that seek satisfaction in accordance with the pleasure principle and are modified by the ego and the superego before they are given overt expression. Which would you rather code?”

Posted in The 9 to 5.

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