My day job is programming computers. More specifically, I write device drivers. Mostly on Unix-type operating systems. This last year we have been a bit short-handed and I got gang pressed into working on our Windows drivers. So have some other engineers who normally work on other things.

One of these engineers was commenting—okay, complaining—about Microsoft inventing their own words for things. The complaint that day was that they call a kernel crash a bug check. Okay, so a bug check is really stopping the kernel and making a report and not exactly a crash. Still, it shows a general direction that has been made over the years of Microsoft (and others) making up words for things that already have name. And for trying to put less offensive names on bad things.

For years the errors were the not-so-helpful “general protection fault” and “illegal instruction.” Those might be helpful to an engineer, but not so much so for the lay-people who make up the majority of the victims. I had more than a few highly educated people (doctors, lawyers, etc) who told me that they thought “illegal instruction” meant that they (the user) had tried to do something that they should not rather than that a programmer was asleep on the job.

Windows Vista appears to have done away with those two error messages. Since I primarily use Mac OS X at home and Unix at work, I have not had much exposure. I do distinctly recall seeing a new and different error report in my limited exposure to Microsoft’s latest operating system. While it demonstrated that user applications still experience defects on Vista, at least the new error message is less likely to make the user think that they pressed the wrong button.

All of this got me to thinking about the logical conclusion of defect error messages. How about calling a fault a “quality moment.” Sure, it is really a “lapse of quality moment,” but when has that put a stop to deceptive naming. And think of how much more accepting of the defect you will be if you see that you are “experiencing a quality moment.” It almost has a Zen feel to it, nu?

It is a good think that I do not work for Microsoft, or you would probably see the introduction of “quality moment” into their lexicon. Of course I do know of one of my occasional readers who does work for the Redmond company, so it still could happen.

Off to work on my evil laugh. I really need to get the name of Dr. Horrible’s voice coach.

Tschuess.

Sources Collective is full of people who produce software. Some of us are computer programmers by trade. Some have a strickly amateur standing. As a result of this, you can expect to see our creative efforts occassionally kick out a computer program or two.