Search Records List Function is Crippled
LegacyUser
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Woody Brison said: From a details page like https://www.familysearch.org/tree/per...
over at the right, clicking on FamilySearch under Search Records takes us to a page that used to be somewhat useful IIRC.
But now it's not. Here's what's wrong with it:
In this screen capture we can see the first four records the system has found. But what are they? Didn't it used to say? Are they Census? Marriage? Got sent to the Principal's office? What's the number 2221801 in the first one, left column? There's no hint of what that is. If 2221801 was gone and the words "findagrave" there instead, I could know what it is without having to right click, left click, tab tab tab, peer, scroll, squint, figure it out, etc. etc. for EVERY SINGLE ITEM!
I hate to complain about stuff but the usefulness of this page is about 3 on a scale of 1 to 50. I need to search something like 5000 records about this whole tribe of people and with this function, at about 60 seconds per record, to open each one up just to find out what they are, it's going to take me at least 80 hours to survey the lot!
Also, as I work thru this list, there's no way to check off the ones I've checked. Firefox used to put links in a different color once you follow them, but that useful service also seems to have gone out of style too. I go off to look at the record, spend 60 seconds peering, then I come back here, now which one was I looking at? It takes me another 30 seconds to find my place again, pushing the job up from two weeks to three. I wish there was some good way to keep track. Some kind of hilite.
Firefox 77.0.1 / Windows 10
over at the right, clicking on FamilySearch under Search Records takes us to a page that used to be somewhat useful IIRC.
But now it's not. Here's what's wrong with it:
In this screen capture we can see the first four records the system has found. But what are they? Didn't it used to say? Are they Census? Marriage? Got sent to the Principal's office? What's the number 2221801 in the first one, left column? There's no hint of what that is. If 2221801 was gone and the words "findagrave" there instead, I could know what it is without having to right click, left click, tab tab tab, peer, scroll, squint, figure it out, etc. etc. for EVERY SINGLE ITEM!
I hate to complain about stuff but the usefulness of this page is about 3 on a scale of 1 to 50. I need to search something like 5000 records about this whole tribe of people and with this function, at about 60 seconds per record, to open each one up just to find out what they are, it's going to take me at least 80 hours to survey the lot!
Also, as I work thru this list, there's no way to check off the ones I've checked. Firefox used to put links in a different color once you follow them, but that useful service also seems to have gone out of style too. I go off to look at the record, spend 60 seconds peering, then I come back here, now which one was I looking at? It takes me another 30 seconds to find my place again, pushing the job up from two weeks to three. I wish there was some good way to keep track. Some kind of hilite.
Firefox 77.0.1 / Windows 10
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Comments
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Juli said: I think you must've encountered a momentary/temporary glitch:
(Also Firefox 77.0.1 and Win10.)0 -
Woody Brison said: My ancestors and I thank you.
Temporary glitches are the hardest kind to fix. I will offer some wisdom I've collected over a lifetime of inventing and engineering.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies." < Tony Hoare
The second way's deficiencies will show up in testing, after you've used up your budget & schedule; now you're trying to fix something, under pressure, that the wisest man in the world can't understand.
"If you don't understand something you're creating, it won't likely work." < Jamie Mouw
Regarding budget, "If you want a kitten, start out asking for a horse." < some child
Family History and Redeeming the Dead has always and forever gotten the short end of the triangle.0 -
Tom Huber said: I agree, Woody and blame mircoslop for the problems. Back when I was programming early computers, we developed a flow chart first, and then wrote the code, making sure that the flow followed the chart.
That was a very simple and effective approach that avoided an possible deficiency.
Mircoslop doesn't (to the best of my knowledge) use that method. Instead the engineer has the flow in their head, but have no way to go back and check the code flow against a proven chart.
I believe most programming companies follow the microslop method. What is really irritating is when a boss came back from a microslop seminar and announced that it was okay to have deficiencies!
I really hope that she had just misinterpreted what she had been told, but given microslop's track record, I don't think she had.0 -
Juli said: Tom, the rotten fruit company is just as bad. They're the originators of a lot of what's wrong with current software (such as mystery-meat navigation and smarter-than-thou behaviors), and they are masters at "no user-servicable parts".0
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Jeff Wiseman said: Woody,
Great quotes! Thanks for sharing. Here's some of my favorites:
"There is always one more bug" < Cyberling's law of Entomology
"Software Engineering is the only engineering discipline where we sell the prototype" < Unknown0
This discussion has been closed.