Re: Re: Re: Regex (lookahead) Confusion

[halley]

If the phone system knows I made an error, and knows the nature of the error, it should recover for my error. If it didn't know these things, then why did it explain my error so accurately?

The structure of telephone systems is to understand how many more digits to expect from the user at any time. Area codes don't start with 0 or 1. This sets up the system to understand the next three digits. Some locales can't distinguish a new-style area code from a historically significant local prefix. The error messages are completely disregarding the user's goals, and instead forcing the user to learn the artificial local dialing hardware implementation. These vary from region to region, so a traveler currently has to cope with varying machine requirements, which have nothing to do with the goal of making a connection.

I didn't say you HAD to recover from the user's errors by fixing it. Unlike the examples, it's not always possible. But you can give a more intelligent answer than "start over from scratch, complying with this rule you didn't know, you stupid user."

Since you're writing the code that helps users accomplish a correct configuration, you know both what the machine expects, and what the user wants to express. You're the ONLY person in this chain who could provide a more intelligent interaction. You can make the computer provide tools to accomplish goals for a wider range of users.

Don't expect the user to learn everything you did. If they mistype something, then help them accomplish their goals, rather than helping them learn the machine details you had to learn.