Re: Uncaught Errors in Interactive Programs and the Users that Ignore the Errors

Personally this is when I like to have a global monitor to catch the
unexpected. It stops the user from seeing the inquiry message (and obviously
if they don't see it, they can't respond to it :) ), and allows my on-error
handler to, well, handle it. Gather some data and then send a message of my
own indicating that a severe error was encountered. As I write general
purpose code which will run in various environments my message just goes to
the joblog. If you control your application environment then, in addition to
a message to the joblog, I would send a message to support identifying the
job and problem.

You should see a few articles on this, by me, in the near future if you
subscribe to SystemiNews.

Bruce

On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 8:33 AM, Mike <koldark@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I am growing tired of this. An error pops up, the user hits 'C' to cancel
the program then tries again. Maybe this time it worked, so they continue
on
with their job. The next day, "Why is my data not here?" So now we have to
back out the changes to allow them to reprocess the data so it runs
correctly.

I am sure I am not unique in this situation. No amount of drilling in to
them will get them to call us when there is an error. They are just drones
doing what their job is.

So, I know there are a few methods out there on how to "fix" this problem
(so we know about the problem so we can fix the edge-case bug). I am
thinking I would like to send an email to both developers with the job log
when such errors happen. By the time we get the email, it may be too late,
but at least we have something logged.

How would you handle this?

--
Mike Wills
http://mikewills.info
P: (507) 933-0880 | Skype: koldark
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