The Consequences of Your Code

This is the story of one of the best, and also one of the worst, text messages I've ever received. It's about harm, about consequences, and about the responsibilities that designers, coders and hackers have to make sure we treat other people with care.

(you can find contact details and social links there too)

[bcat]

"No idea. It just does that sometimes."


-Bethesda

[asliyase]

The beginning of this video might be the most personal Tom’s got in 10 years

[darylg]

I absolutely love that screenshot where Tom's response is just "Oh for f***s sake". Comedy genius.

[hupiscratch]

I can imagine Tom Scott rocketing to the clinic:
_ I'm here because of the results.
_ But sir, you could just have called.
_ I did, and that's why I'm here. Show me the server room.

[Someonea]

Roses are red
Violets are blue
That wasn't an intro
I thought Tom Scott would do.

[RareEarthSeries]

If you tell an ex with chlamidya that you're clean, does that count as clapping back?

[georgedoty-williams]

I thought we would sooner see Tom in a blue t-shirt than knowing anything about Tom's sexual life

[cosmicjenny]

_calls number_
“Hello, *Tom.* Your test results are: *Positive, * for not having chlamydia. Thank you.”

[freecodecamp]

Roses in the dirt
Violets on the road
Programming is more than
Learning to code

[gergelycsontos]

I scrolled through the comments, but did not find this nice piece:
Roses are Red,
Violets are Blue
Unexpected '{'
on line 32.

[adamsfusion]

As a programmer that takes a ton of pride in your work, the worst user interfacing most times doesn't come from a programmer's decision, it comes from a manager or business owner. I promise we're not incompetent clowns who just crap out code. We deal with people every day who care about time and money more than an average person should.

[kalebbruwer]

I've coded so much spaghetti that I put Italy to shame.

[TomScottGo]

Every season of the Basics has three episodes: one about theory, one about code, and one about the wider world. This is definitely the one about the wider world. (And just to be absolutely clear, the test was negative.)

[MetaBloxer]

I work at a retail store where every error is as generic as it can be
"Authorization declined" for example. It could mean...
-Wrong PIN
-No Balance
-Chip was bumped
-Card was used out of state
It's very frustrating to me AND customers.

[notdaveschannel]

So to summarise:
A: Handle invalid states with sufficient transparency to your end-user.
B. Wear a condom.

[BunEMote]

"Show me something foolproof, and I'll show you a better fool."
I heard those words somewhere on the internet a few years ago, and they have shaped my life.
You can't think that it will be 'good enough' because it won't.

[tetrahedron_in_space]

Tom, I work in HR to help develop better people systems for the manufacturing company I work for (specifically training and workplace safety). I showed your video to a few of my coworkers who were planning on implementing a new occupational health initiative without thinking of the potentially disastrous follow-through consequences, and they have changed their minds and gone back to the drawing board to redesign the program in an effort to reduce the negative consequences. Thanks for summing up my thoughts in a way I wasn't able to in order to make peoples' lives better.

[imveryangryitsnotbutter]

*_WHEN WILL YOU LEARN?!?_*

*_WHEN WILL YOU LEARN, THAT YOUR CODE HAS CONSEQUENCES?!?_*

[erictaylor]

A couple of years ago I started having alarming neurological symptoms. After many tests and scans I got a call from a specialist who would be taking over my case.
At this point I still had no idea what was going on, so I called the number to set up an appointment. The words I was greeted with filled me with dread. "Thankyou for calling neuro-oncology, can I help you?"
It turned out that because of a rare genetic disorder I have I was referred to a doctor who had a subspecialty in this disorder, his main specialty was neuro-oncology. So I didn't have brain cancer. But of course the receptionist who set up my appointment couldn't tell me this, so I spent about a week thinking I was going to be getting very bad news indeed. It was very stressful.
I mentioned this to my doctor and for some reason they stopped greeting people with that greeting. I mean, a lot of the people calling that number probably do have brain cancer, and you don't want to find this out with a cheery "Thank-you for calling the brain cancer treatment doctors"

[azdgariarada]

10 bucks says whoever was tasked with writing the program for that clinic was either paid a shockingly small amount to get the job done as quickly as possible, so their incentive was just to slap something together that worked, or, could have been designed by committee and so many people had their hands in it and nobody bothered looking at the forest through the trees.