Error'd: Sentinel Headline
When faced with an information system lacking sufficient richnessto permit its users to express all of the necessary data states,human beings will innovate. In other words, they will find creativeways to bend the system to their will, usually (but notalways) inconsequentially.
In the early days of informationsystems, even before electronic computers, we found users choosing to insertvarious out-of-bounds values into data fields to represent states such as "I don't know the true value forthis item" or "It is impossible accurately state the true value ofthis item because of faulty constraint being applied to the input mechanism"or other such notions.
This practice carried on into the computing age, so that now, numericfields will often contain values of 9999 or 99999999. Taxpayer numberswill be listed as 000-00-0000 or any other repetition of the samedigit or simple sequences. Requirements to enter names collectedJohn Does. Now we also see a fair share of Disney characters.
Programmers then try to make their systems idiot-proof, with theobvious and entirely predictable results.
The mere factthat these inventions exist at allis entirely due to the ommission of mechanisms for the metacommentary that we all know perfectlywell is sometimes necessary. But rather than provide those,it's easier to wave our hands and pretendthat these unwanted states won't exist, can be ignored, can be glossed over."Relax" they'll tell you. "It probably won't ever happen.""If it does happen, it won't matter." "Don't lose your head over it."
The Beast in Black certainly isn't inclined to cover up an errant sentinel. "For that price, it had better be agenuine Louis XVI pillow from 21-January-1793." A La Lanterne!
Daniel D. doubled up on Error'ds for us. "Do you need the error details? Yes, please."
And again with an alert notification oopsie. "Google Analytics 4 never stops surprising us any given day withhow bugged it is. I call it an "Exclamation point undefined". Youwant more info? Just Google it... Oh wait."I do appreciate knowing who is responsible for the various bodges we are sent.Thank you, Daniel.
"Dark pattern or dumb pattern?" wonders an anonymousreader. I don't think it's very dark.
Finally, Ian Campbell found a data error that doesn't look likean intentional sentinel. But I'm not sure what this number represents.It is not an integral power of 2. Says Ian, "SendGrid has a pretty good free plan now with a daily limit ofnine quadrillion seven trillion one hundred ninety-nine billiontwo hundred fifty-four million seven hundred forty thousand ninehundred ninety-two."
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