Argh!

This morning I was informed of a problem on a product, the software for which I maintain. I was told this gadget seems to reset randomly, and not recover. That is all I was told. Hardly a clue there. The change in behavior seemingly was noticed some time ago - after hardware and software both changed. But it involves a display showing a reset condition and a loss of some programmed data, so I get to worry about it first, since it's always bad software, right?

Nobody said anything when the switch occurred, when things were fresh in mind and problems expected. Hoped against, but expected all the same. A few version did have issues that internal testing managed to miss (dagnabbit - much as I dislike finding problems, I'd rather someone in the plant find them. Once a gadget reaches a customer it ought to Just Work for them.) They, the problems, got fixed. Details? What are those? Where is this happening? Canada. Okkay, so was it happening all summer? (Dunno.) Only when it got cold? (Dunno.) Only at some sites? (Dunno.) "Maybe it's the watchdog timer, that was the problem years ago." Yes, it was. One I made sure wouldn't happen again, or so I'd thought. Resign myself to looking at the thing. Find nothing. No watchdog screwiness, no buffer overflows (yay for ring buffers! They might drop stuff, but they'll never overflow), no weird unplanned paths for things to take. All errors should be soft ones.

Finally get told it's the hardware, but the hardware design is right. Yeah. What's going on? Well, one of the dunnos got answered. The data loss and reset only happens after the gadget has been shut off a while and switched back on. There is a small battery (cell, really) to keep the memory alive. This only works if it is 1. installed and 2. installed correctly. Well, the cells are installed. But evidently some are poorly marked and someone putting them in doesn't always look close.. and reversed cells don't preserve memory. Well, I can't write code around that one.

And now, something other.

A bit of a rant in rhiacat's journal has reminded me of a few things. First, I know I make more than a few typos. And drop entire words from sentences. Often the words 'no' or 'not' so the sentence says the opposite of what I mean. (Argh!) Also, I know I often omit periods at the ends of quick comments on IRC. Capitalization also suffers there. Those are faults, and I have them.

However, IRC is 'live' and quick response mean non-ideal editing. A letter or post (like here) is not 'live' (is it Memorex?) and editing is not only possible but recommended. Sure, there will still be a typo here and there and the odd just plain screwup. But something has come to really annoy me. And that something is people who post (not just lj -- in fact I notice more on a certain other web board) sans capitalization and punctuation. Great Zarquon's singing fish! Can't a person give a reader some indication of when a sentence ends and another starts? Then add substitutes like 'u' for 'you' and 'r' for 'are' and frowning faces for the word 'sad' and what is there? Is that communication? The result looks more like a low grade encryption!