technothaumaturgy
Jan. 31st, 2014 10:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deird1People who don't use much technology seem to think it's magic.
Current client is putting written work online, which involves coding. In particular, coding which makes pretty maths equations look like actual maths equations. Because the things that make equations look good in Word make online equations totally incomprehensible – if, in fact, they appear at all.
Thankfully, there is a button they can press that's magic. It goes like this:
1) Pretty Word equations
2) A MIRACLE OCCURRETH
3) Pretty online equations
I am now attempting to break it gently to my client that they cannot get these files checked by someone who doesn't know coding. And that I have, in fact, spent most of my week dealing with the coding, because magic buttons, while helpful, are not a panacea. Despite the magic buttons, I still have to
- check every line of equation coding
- fix all the errors that crept in during the conversion
- code all the bits that were just part of the normal text, and hence weren't converted
It's surprisingly hard to explain. Much as I imagine it'd be hard for the local wizard to explain why invisibility cloaks just don't work that way.
Current client is putting written work online, which involves coding. In particular, coding which makes pretty maths equations look like actual maths equations. Because the things that make equations look good in Word make online equations totally incomprehensible – if, in fact, they appear at all.
Thankfully, there is a button they can press that's magic. It goes like this:
1) Pretty Word equations
2) A MIRACLE OCCURRETH
3) Pretty online equations
I am now attempting to break it gently to my client that they cannot get these files checked by someone who doesn't know coding. And that I have, in fact, spent most of my week dealing with the coding, because magic buttons, while helpful, are not a panacea. Despite the magic buttons, I still have to
- check every line of equation coding
- fix all the errors that crept in during the conversion
- code all the bits that were just part of the normal text, and hence weren't converted
It's surprisingly hard to explain. Much as I imagine it'd be hard for the local wizard to explain why invisibility cloaks just don't work that way.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-30 11:35 pm (UTC)Gabrielle
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Date: 2014-01-31 02:16 am (UTC)2) This is why as high-handed as the Doctor can be sometimes, I actually don't mind when he goes off on a pseudo-Gallifreyan techno-ramble and leaves his companions squinting in confusion (and then handwaves away their requests for an English translation) -- he clearly is talking about a real thing! It's just super complex. And that "real thing, hard to explain" gives the story a certain believability to me. Even if it's maddening for the civilians.
3) Also, fuck Word when it's trying and failing to be helpful. :P
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Date: 2014-01-31 03:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-31 08:00 am (UTC)Actual conversation with customer:
Customer: ...and this thing where we have to go to the internet, when are you going to fix that?
Me: I'm sorry, which thing?
Customer: You know! Where you make us go to your internet to use your service!
Me: You mean, where you have to actually go to our webpage to use our online services?
Customer: DUH! When the hell are you going to fix that?
Me: I'll... look into that.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-31 03:18 pm (UTC)