I’ve been working on this for a while, but let’s make it official: I started a little Tumblr-like microblog about software craft and quality!

[relsqui@mastodon.social]

@mwichary (but yes will report back if I actually get the team to do it. I'm thinking of fomenting a conversation about documentation processes)

[acb@mastodon.social]

@mwichary @debcha I saw the Untitled Goose Game exhibition when I was last in Naarm; that was excellent.

[mwichary@mastodon.online]

I wrote a little bit about molly guards, or UI that protects you from other UI!†

I’m very curious if you have other examples I missed.

(† Not related to the street drug.)

https://unsung.aresluna.org/molly-guard-in-reverse/

[andy@dotgr.id]

@mwichary I loved your point about how confirmation dialogs for closing/destructive actions are sort of a molly guard too!

I'm also thinking about the super annoying thing that Chrome does when you Command-Q to quit, where it wants you to hold down the keys to execute the command.

And, maybe a bit more of a stretch, the cars where if you want to open a locked door from the inside, requires you to pump the handle twice?

[mwichary@mastodon.online]

@andy Oh, those are good! It’s interesting how people are divided on the ⌘Q thing. I love it personally, but I see how it depends on your usage patterns.

[doekman@mastodon.nl]

@mwichary @andy I hated it too, but there is an opt-out in the same menu, so I think this is good design. Especially for "bigger" apps one normally doesn't quit.

[doekman@mastodon.nl]

@mwichary About reverse Molly guards: Netflix uses one to nudge you into watching a next episode from a series. I consider this a dark pattern, because it's a debatable default.

[mwichary@mastodon.online]

@doekman I agree! I think Apple TV and YouTube also have it, but it’s toggle’able.

[doekman@mastodon.nl]

@mwichary It's there, but only on the web interface...

[svenni@mastodon.social]

@mwichary this setting for airpods pro

[mwichary@mastodon.online]

@svenni Oh, yes! I always found it a bit awkward.

[mwichary@mastodon.online]

In which I celebrate the craft of Flickr’s original, amazing URL scheme: https://unsung.aresluna.org/unsung-heroes-flickrs-urls-scheme/

[davebauerart@mastodon.social]

@mwichary I remember when this was the norm! It was everywhere for a lot of the web sites I was involved with in the olden days. I have always done URL surgery. Probably comes from comfort with command-line interfaces and knowing how the backend software works.

[atomicbird@mastodon.social]

@mwichary that was the first web API I ever used. I didn’t appreciate it nearly enough until I used others.

[gosha@merveilles.town]

@mwichary Yes! Flickr was what made me pay attention to URLs as well. The thing I thought was a bit strange at the time is how the URL for the profile page was at a separate "root" path, `/people/mwichary`, which made the profile and photostream feel like two separate apps in a way. I remember wondering about that a lot!

[dokas@mas.to]

@mwichary Immediate internal share!

[mwichary@mastodon.online]

@gosha Oh yeah! I forgot about that.

[devils_rancher@beige.party]

@mwichary I was taught that human-readable URLs were important, took it to heart, and now everything just makes me sad to look at the ridiculous strings. Flickr has really hung in there in a lot of ways, and I’m still very happy with the service.

[mez@mastodon.nz]

@mwichary Regarding the note about adding a human friendly slug to the end of a URL, do you have a thought or preference to putting that part before the unique id?

flickr.com/mwichary/sets/alishan-forest-railway-72177720330077904

On an app I run I went with that style so the all the human readable bits could be typed and autocompleted. It does seem to be a little harder to read since it’s in the middle of the text though.

For example: https://app.mythic.nz/book/public-storybooks/sharable-public-storybooks/v4dUmg8Jjk6LmQYQlqy6Pw

`public-storybooks` is the collection slug, and `sharable-public-storybooks` is the page title slug.

[dokas@mas.to]

@mwichary @gosha I can assure you it’s a perennial quandary. The truth is the origin of this particular pattern harkens back to the Game Never Ending era.