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First response
No it should not be done because it is non standard functionality
Second response - when they express no interest in standards
It will cost $n and $n+10% every upgrade we supply to customise the application for you.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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The point still stands, explain this to them... communication. People skills. But, if it comes off as smug it'll never go over well. It's called human nature bro.
Jeremy Falcon
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Jeremy Falcon wrote: communication. People skills.
Some of those peripheral skills a well rounded developer requires but so few of us work on. Self employed will tend to acquire these a dammed sight quicker than corporate developers.
It seems by going back to corporate I have reverted to a grumpy old bastard.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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Mycroft Holmes wrote: Some of those peripheral skills a well rounded developer requires but so few of us work on. Self employed will tend to acquire these a dammed sight quicker than corporate developers.
Exactly
Mycroft Holmes wrote: It seems by going back to corporate I have reverted to a grumpy old bastard.
Been there, done that brother. 
Jeremy Falcon
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I think I would need to know more about the app to come to that conclusion.
Long ago data entry into computer applications did use the enter key. Exclusively. And data entry was a job and some people were very good at it. Fast and precise.
In terms of an app I see no reason why the enter key shouldn't be used, unless it precludes some other functionality. Which would be a cause for a problem. For example do not some text controls allow one to enter multi-line text, which requires the enter key. Seems like that could be a problem. That of course doesn't mean that it should be used instead of the Tab key.
Other than that I would also want to know what this customer represents to the company. For example if one has a very useful beta tester with a lot of domain knowledge for the target industry I would want to keep her very happy. Even with non-standard functionality (especially since non-standard for me might in fact be standard for the industry.)
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jschell wrote: I would also want to know what this customer represents to the company
This should only control how polite you are, even someone with a lot of domain knowledge should not influence an industry (software not domain) design standard. If they are your ONLY customer then that may be different otherwise you end up with a myriad of different versions to meet non standard requests.
I got the impression this is neither a high speed data entry program nor is the user particularly knowledgeable so customisation seems unreasonable.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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Mycroft Holmes wrote: This should only control how polite you are, even someone with a lot of domain knowledge should not influence an industry (software not domain) design standard
In terms of domain knowledge they should have a better understanding of what users in that industry (not tech/UI) expect. So their knowledge might drive to the point that users in that industry expect different behavior. There are two sides to that in that the user might be mistaken but it could also be because an alternative product used widely in the industry (not the one being developed but rather as an alternative or even competitor does that.)
Additionally my impression was that this was an alternative and not instead of. In my experience getting reasonable and frequent feedback from actual external customers is something that must be treasured because most users are not interested and do not have the time. Even when they are incentivized with cheaper or free products feedback is seldom forthcoming. The description suggests that possibility. Those people must be coddled.
Finally for me I deliver domain solutions that strive to meet to needs of the problem domain as the users expect. That has and will continue to mean compromising all parts of application implementation to some extent to deliver products that most fully meet what they need, expect and even desire. All of those are important to not only deliver something that works as they want but also sometimes items that are not even used but which might help is selling the product to a new customer group.
Mycroft Holmes wrote: I got the impression this is neither a high speed data entry program nor is the user particularly knowledgeable so customisation seems unreasonable.
My explanation there was not complete. The point is that due to past experience this is something that one person or a group of people might expect and be comfortable with. That could drive their expectations now (even though process now is different.)
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jschell wrote: Long ago data entry into computer applications did use the enter key. Exclusively. And data entry was a job and some people were very good at it. Fast and precise.
Had a bunch of people two jobs ago who were around since who-knows-when and had ingrained habits that I had to compensate for.
The weirdest one was Hitting the space bar before typing anything else in the text boxes.
I have no idea what system they were used to that needed that...to wake it up, I guess?
But I ended up having to Trim every bit of text before sending it off to the database.
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GenJerDan wrote: But I ended up having to Trim every bit of text before sending it off to the database.
But I have done that just because users type spaces accidentally as well.
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Jeremy Falcon wrote: Sometimes people don't know what they're asking for (time wise). It's up to us to tell the customer what it'll cost in time. They may be under the impression it's a 3 second change and no big deal.
This is certainly the case here...the user in question seriously thinks that we designed the program to beep on Enter, finds it annoying, and simply asked if we could make it stop. Even my ex-programmer business partner assumed it's just a trivial thing to fix...just wave the magic wand...we can do anything! 
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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kmoorevs wrote: Even my ex-programmer business partner
Hah so he has turned to the dark side and become a salesman.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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Mycroft Holmes wrote: so he has turned to the dark side and become a salesman.
She actually hired me 18 years ago to take over development so that she could focus on the rest of the business...now it's a 50/50 partnership. 
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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kmoorevs wrote: 18 years ago
Well entrenched in the dark side then.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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I followed Jeremy's thread into a personal labyrinth where I heard ... not the Minotaur's bellow ... but, a Muse's murmuring:
i talk to this stranger in the mirror,
being careful not to trouble him with
comments like: 'my, you do look older,
today, than yesterday:' took years to
get his voice back from stoic silence,
to shy whisper, to hinting bold truth
somewhere between his telling me what
he thinks i need to hear, and lies he
tells to paralyze the ruthless clocks:
the moths of truth hurling themselves
against light's promise of an eternal
story never ended, and never repeated
he sees me using magic less dangerous
than this magic i use to see him, now published under the CPOPL license (CodeProject Open Poetic License). No entheogenic plants, or kittens, were harmed during the production of this fugue.
«While I complain of being able to see only a shadow of the past, I may be insensitive to reality as it is now, since I'm not at a stage of development where I'm capable of seeing it.» Claude Levi-Strauss (Tristes Tropiques, 1955)
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Did you write that? That's pretty deep stuff man, and I can totally identify with that on more levels than one.
Jeremy Falcon
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Thanks, Jeremy, I am the half-blind flea on the foot of Poetry that brought back this (undoubtedly mis-translated) rendering of a Muse's perfect song.
I have an intuition that you would find a poem by Robert Graves meaningful:
"In Broken Images" [^]
I have been reading this poem for sixty years, and learning ... or un-learning ... every time I read it.
cheers, Bill
«While I complain of being able to see only a shadow of the past, I may be insensitive to reality as it is now, since I'm not at a stage of development where I'm capable of seeing it.» Claude Levi-Strauss (Tristes Tropiques, 1955)
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Then your intuition would be correct sir.
I can tell you what I got out of that poem in regards to thinking clearly and by extension intelligence... it's something I deal with constantly being in IT. Sometimes the "smartest" people can have the least in life and suffer from lack of experience. You can't very well experience anything but thinking if all you do is think and nothing else. And since experience is the real teacher in life, one has to beg the question if "intelligence" is really intelligent if the cost of too much of it is to have no experiences.
Ironically, whether or not the mind over thinks or under thinks, the result is still being slow in life. Go figure.
And like you, I believe wisdom is what remains after you unlearn what's been learned from the status quo.
Jeremy Falcon
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If you are developing an app using the UWP platform and Visual Studio 2017, you may run into the same issue I experienced after the VS update of yesterday:
I have been working on a UWP app and could create its installation package without any issues, until VS 2017 was updated yesterday. This morning, creating an installation package caused somewhere between 20 and 30 errors! This same version worked flawlessly before the VS update. The tips from VS were useless: For example: You have invalid Java Script files in your solution. I don't have a single JS file. Yuck!
After some trial and error, (and some cussing, I blush to disclose) I tried the following: I deleted both versions of the Windows 10 SDK I had on my machine and installed only the very latest version (build 16299.15.*****) Voila! Problem solved. Apparently, for reasons I don't understand, the updated version of VS 2017 wants that particular SDK.
So if you are working on an UWP app and the latest version of VS 2017, you may need the very latest Win 10 SDK.
Get me coffee and no one gets hurt!
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thanks for the update ! I wish I could still blush 
«While I complain of being able to see only a shadow of the past, I may be insensitive to reality as it is now, since I'm not at a stage of development where I'm capable of seeing it. A few hundred years later another traveler despairing as myself, may mourn the disappearance of what I may have seen, but failed to see.» Claude Levi-Strauss (Tristes Tropiques, 1955)
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It's been a while since my last confession, but I blush to disclose that I did not really blush! 
Get me coffee and no one gets hurt!
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Over the past couple of years or so, my computer became horribly cluttered with all kinds of junk, and lately it started some funky behavior. So I decided to do a clean install of the Windows 10 Fall Update. I downloaded the tool to create Fall Update install media. The systems drive was re-partitioned to meet UEFI requirements. I was doing quite well (or so I thought) until the install was complete and I tried Edge for the first time. Every time I tried to run a search in Edge, the browser would freeze. I couldn't shut it down and restarting the computer had no effect. Edge remained frozen and useless.
Then I found this valuable advice on YouTube:
Reinstalling Edge[^]
In summary re-installing Edge is a two step process:
1) Delete the following hidden folder (after a safe boot):
C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_********
2) After a normal boot, run the following command in Admin PowerShell:
Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers -Name Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml" -Verbose}
Manually enable Development Mode in Settings, if required. And if all goes well: Voila! You will have a fresh install of Edge!
Be sure you have a good restore point (or better: A recent systems drive image), before you start messing with systems folders and PowerShell commands - just in case things go wrong. 
Get me coffee and no one gets hurt!
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So...this begs the question: What gets broken in Win10 if you don't tell it to reinstall Edge?
I personally never use it, my default browser is set to something else, yet every once in while some link will insist on opening Edge...
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I have become a loyal Edge user. It has too many nice features I like, I won't bother with anything else!
Get me coffee and no one gets hurt!
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Hey, Microsoft: We found the guy!
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My thoughts exactly! Unfortunately, trying to explain standard functionality to an end user, and even to some colleagues is like talking to a wall...they believe that anything is possible...and easy...and can be done by tomorrow!
