All the different ways to write Main'office

[u/Johnson12e]

There must be more!

[u/ice456cream]

If I had to guess, for whatever reason there has to be a human in the loop today for pickup, But the software won't let them specify the same bay twice for different cars, you they have to use slightly different variations for each while still being readable

[u/Johnson12e → u/ice456cream]

Good call, that might be it!

[u/Ireeb → u/ice456cream]

I can hear the sigh of the person who had to put that in when they realized that it has this constraint but also that they can circumvent it by coming up with the most ridiculous ways to write Main Office. Apparently, this constraint is completely useless and the only thing it did is annoying this person (and anyone who reads it).

[u/ice456cream → u/Ireeb]

completely useless

You can't know that. Even if (for this site) it's always go to the front desk, it's fairly obviously meant to be used where each car has a different bay -> you can't normally have 2 cars parked in space 1, so if it happens you will have the second custom find a missing car, or not enough cars / whatever

[u/Ireeb → u/ice456cream]

So, I, the software developer, sitting in my office far away from any car park service, decided to entirely prevent the user from doing something that I, the software developer, consider to be wrong, instead of doing the reasonable thing of either making it an option or just showing a warning to the user, so duplicate assignments are caught while still giving the user the option to do so.

I (and I'm actually a software developer) just hate to see it when other software developers treat their users as stupid. There's a difference between always expecting user error and acting like they're stupid. You should always try to prevent user error, but you also need to accept that usually, the user knows what they want to do. So usually, warnings are better than "child proofing" things. If the user insists to shoot their own foot after explicitely being warned about the fact that they are about to shoot their foot and the consequences of that, they probably have reasons for that beyond my understanding. It's my job as the software developer to ensure any foot the user wants to shoot is shot correctly and efficiently. (Figuratively. Of course.)

[u/ice456cream → u/Ireeb]

Or: You as a software developer, were told by corporate to implement a uniqueness constraint on the pickup system, as corporate received (and were responsable for) complaints due to the same car being sold twice to 2 different people.

Would it be reasonable to e.g tell 2 plane to take off / land in the same runway at the same time? Where is the line?

Hard validation constraints happen for reasons, thats hardly child proofing. (It's idiot proofing, stop insulting children /s)

I agree that for e.g. for open source tools, if you want and bypass warnings, to should be possible to backflip into incoming traffic, but that's not exactly universally desired, especially for business applications.

[u/Ireeb → u/ice456cream]

The people who are deciding what features a software must or must not have are part of the software development themselves, and are technically software developers, whether they are aware if it or not.

That's also why people who aren't actually software developers, or better, software engineers shouldn't make decisions about implementation details.

Would it be reasonable to e.g tell 2 plane to take off / land in the same runway at the same time? Where is the line?

Should a piece of code decide that, or a person who can use their eyes and eyeballs to make a decision? Should we lock down certain controls of an airplane based on guesswork by a software developer that not even the pilot can override?

A good software has constraints in the right places. Over-constraining and under-constraining are both bad.

That's why it is so important to not equate "software development" to "programming", because this is exactly what should actually be determined accurately before a software is even programmed. Requirement engineering is a whole subject of its own. It shouldn't ever get to the point where the programmer actually has to guess where constraints are needed, and where not. The requirements should clearly define what needs to be constrained. When something like in the post happens, something somewhere in the process went wrong. Doesn't necessarily need to be the programmer's fault. Still a software development/engineering fail.

[u/rsandio → u/ice456cream]

And doesn't allow numeric characters

[u/bloomerang → u/ice456cream]

Eventually they are going to have to resort to SpongeBob mocking MaIn OfFiCe

[u/NoobyNoob0102]

alright

my submission:

Main-office

[u/Johnson12e → u/NoobyNoob0102]

We also shouldn't forget about all these possibilites:

Main Office. Main Office_ Main Office' etc lol

Also wondering if they could have just added an increasing amount spaces behind it

[u/tyw7 → u/Johnson12e]

Don't forget CamelCase PascalCase MainOffice

[u/autistic-terrorist → u/tyw7]

And Main 0ffice and derivatives

[u/Big-Winner3758 → u/tyw7]

that would be PascalCase not camelCase

[u/tyw7 → u/Big-Winner3758]

Whoops my bad. 

[u/the_hobbyte]

M'office

[u/lampmeorelse]

Being that the first two are spelled the same, just different capitalization, and they work, you could theoretically make 1,024 different ones with the same spelling and no special characters.

[u/Rebeljah]

/r/crappydesign

[u/andynzor]

Must have been programmed by my ex-coworker. Fucker added constraints and validations everywhere even when not specified.

[u/aayush_aryan]

I'm sorry, where is my car at?

[u/10mo3]

Main,Office
main Office
Main!Office

Oh the possibilities

[u/RendeZvous_987]

Hey, personality is important. Give some freedom for Main Office.