Hawk's Babble-Log

Have you ever noticed that virtually all Microsoft products ask the question, “Are you sure?” They ask “Are you sure?” a lot. They ask “Are you sure?” so much that other software makers have caught the “Are you sure?” bug. I don’t know how many times a day I think to myself, “Yes, I’m really, really sure.”

If you think to yourself, “Yes, I’m really, really sure.” every time you are asked if you’re sure, you may become as annoyed as I am.

Ghastly news: The “Are you sure?” disease has even spread to Linux! As an example, if you install a standard Red Hat Enterprise Linux Operating System, then become superuser (root), then try to delete something, the system will ask you if you’re sure. This is _not_ the default behavior! Someone at Red Hat decided to set up a command alias which adds the “confirm” flag to the remove, copy, and move commands.

So, whenever I see this prompt, I instantly remove these command aliases so that the system doesn’t continuously check with me if I’m sure or not. Why, yes, Red Hat, I typed that command because I was sure. No, wait, let me check with myself first… did I type that command because I wasn’t sure, but I wanted you to ask me if I was sure, so that I could say, “No, I’m really not sure.”?

No, that’s not the case. I typed that command because I was sure. Yes, I’m really, really sure. Stop asking me.

Now, the nice thing about Linux is that I can fix things like this. It’s easy, just modify the .bashrc file for that user and source the thing. I don’t even have to re-login. Unfortunately, it’s not quite so easy with Windows.

Almost every day, I run a special kind of business program. I run it for a few hours in the morning, then close it down until the next day. When closing this program down, it always asks, “Are you sure you want to exit?” This little query window is titled “Warning”, and it has a little yellow warning icon on the lefthand side. I always click the “Yes” button. I think the “Yes” button should be “Yo Mamma”, but the authors of the software probably wouldn’t agree.

Even if I closed down this application by accident, I always click the “Yes” button. Now that I’ve got this “Are you sure?” circuit set up and hard-wired in (from years of clicking the “Yes” button), what does this prompt do? What good does it do to ask me if I’m sure when I automatically click the “Yes” button every time? Even if I wasn’t sure I wanted to close the thing down, I still click the “Yes” button. It’s become a senseless a habit.

When closing an unsaved, modified document, I would want the software to ask me if I wanted to save before exiting. This has some value, even though I use the save function every 10 or 15 seconds (also by habit, created due to Microsoft software crashing on me so often).

But is there really any value to the question, “Are you sure?” when asked so much? So repetitively?

I worked with a database expert when I was at SpeedyClick. This guy was amazing. He spoke three languages (well), knew database concepts that I still don’t know, and could learn a whole new programming language in a few weeks. At that time, we were hacking/patching the linux kernel so that it would work with Oracle. This was difficult as it had not been done much–it was rather new. He would use a file system program called Midnight Commander, because it ran in a terminal window. It looked a lot like Norton Commander for DOS. Aaah, the good ol’ DOS days…

Anyway, my friend, the database expert, often set up whole directory trees for testing, then would delete them when he was done. He was using a function of Midnight Commander to do this, and the program would confirm with a red box, “Delete directory [blah]?” when removing an entire directory tree (all files within the directory, as well as all subdirectories and all their files/dirs, etc., on down). Because of the highly destructive nature of removing an entire directory tree, Midnight Commander would ask TWICE if the user was really sure. The first time, it was a simple “Yes/No” prompt, and the selector was on “Yes” by default, so all the user had to do was hit the “Enter” key or “Y”. If the user selected “Yes”, then Midnight commander would bring up another prompt, slightly larger, still red, with a warning inside, “Directory not empty. Delete it recursively?” Again, there was a “Yes/No” prompt, but also there was “All”, and “None”, and “Abort”. The selector, by default, was on “Yes”.

So now, all the user had to do was hit the “Enter” key again, or the “Y” key, and away that entire directory tree goes.

My friend, the database expert, got in the habit of hitting the “Enter” key twice. He didn’t even think about it. When he was done with a directory, he’d just wipe it out. The keystrokes were “F8, Enter, Enter”. One day he did this on the wrong directory. Ouch, there goes the production environment.

Again I ask, what value is there in an “Are you sure?” prompt? Especially when we can put it on automatic? The “Are you sure?” prompt does not bring the user back to present time (if they’re daydreaming, for example). The “Are you sure?” prompt does not alert the user to the fact that they’re in the wrong directory, the production directory (such as the example above with my friend the expert database administrator).

Near as I can tell, all the “Are you sure?” prompt does is create extra code in programs, and causes me to think to myself, “Yes, I’m really, really sure.” dozens of times per day as I automatically click the “Yes” button. I really think the “Yes” button should be changed to “Yo Mamma”.

Alert! Just now, Midnight Commander asked me, “Do you really want to quit the Midnight Commander?” as I hit the Quit button. Aarrrgghhhh! Has the “Are you sure?” disease infiltrated all programs everywhere?!? Please, let it not be so! Please, for all users’ sanity everywhere, let it not be so! I’m just going to hit “Yes” anyway!

Hey Microsoft, how ’bout this for a prompt:

Enter any 11-digit prime number, if you're sure: [___________]

That would be only slightly more annoying. And yes, I’m really, really sure.