The problem with arbitrary decisions when designing computer programs, especially when deciding abou

So nate was sitting there, programing this happy place. And he had to put in a new text field, for entering a node name for creating a node. (I don't know perl, so I'm writing the equivalent in Java). And to create a text field you should specify a field length. So he did: 100. What the heck. Hmm... and now I'm stuck with a node title too long for the field.

This problem is actually quite a serious one, and is taken very lightheadedly. This is because when you write a computer program, your primary intent is to make sure it WORKS. So you just arbitrarily decide on these kind of things (also things such as port numbers, and window sizes, and a myriad other things). And then, when it works, there are the arbitrarily decided variables, still there. And they are forgotten, because, hey, it works.

And then the user interface sucks. And then you get wasted memory. And then you get null pointer exceptions, because you tested it on simple, short examples.

Although the node title is slightly humorous (blame nate), this is quite a serious problem, which many programmers ignore. So (programming hint): next time you arbitrarily chose something, write it down. When the program is done and functional, check the list, and rechoose the values, not arbitrarily.

P.S. I'm not dissing the programmers of E2 for this. (The GUI here is fine, I haven't seen too many bugs...) All programmers make arbitrary choices. This was theirs. And that's fine.

Just go to one of your writeups and make a link with the title of the node you want to create.

Submit the writeup and follow the link.

When confronted with the Findings: or Nothing Found page, just use the Of course, I could let you create a new "I don't understand why is so hard to create nodes with titles that exceed the 100 character limit. Don't you know what Bill Gates said about 640 Kb being all the RAM you'll ever need?" node... link.

Don't forget to delete the link you used to create your gigantic node title.

I suppose this pain is the price you have to pay for creating nodes with titles that are too long.

100 characters should be enough for everyone

Actually, while it may seem like a mere annoyance, choosing an arbitrary limit for a text buffer in a language without a proper string type (*coughcoughCcough*) can lead to the dreaded buffer overflow exploit if you code carelessly. Many security holes have arisen through this practice.