C's Biggest Mistake on Hacker News

[Walter Bright]

On 7/25/2018 2:08 AM, Jim Balter wrote:
> It ought to be obvious that "just use better tools" is far cheaper and more 
> effective, but I think one of the problems is something that I also see in 
> politics quite a bit: a lot of people are more interested in feeling superior or 
> punishing people for their flaws than in avoiding bad outcomes. And there's also 
> the magical "if only everyone would ..." thinking. If you want to get everyone 
> to do something they aren't currently doing, you need some *causal mechanism* 
> (and it has to be feasible, which "avoid all mistakes through discipline" is not).


I recommend anyone interested in design watch "Aviation Disasters", where even 
the most well-trained pilots fall victim to user interface design flaws, that 
are always obvious in retrospect.

Like the one where the checklist for loss cabin pressure starts out with 
fiddling with dials and switches to diagnose the problem. A crew followed that, 
passed out from hypoxia, crashed and died. The corrected sequence starts with:

   Step 1: put on your oxygen mask.

because it only takes a few seconds to pass out from hypoxia.

Pretty much every episode follows that pattern.

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My father worked as an accident investigator for the Air Force once upon a time. 
The AF used standard phrases for things to reduce confusion. One such is 
"takeoff power", meaning full power as that's what you use for taking off.

A pilot was coming in for a landing once, and the strip was obstructed, so he 
yelled "takeoff power" to the copilot, who heard "take off power" and pulled the 
throttles back. The jet sank and crashed.

The AF changed the phrase to "full power" (or "maximum power", I forgot which).

Naturally, this also seems ridiculously obvious - but only in retrospect. Sort 
of like the infamous Windows "Start" button which turns off the machine :-)

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My experience is that all programmers (including myself) believe they know what 
is "intuitively obvious" going forward and what is not. They're all wrong. These 
things are learned only in hindsight.