. . . when it's an Undocumented Feature

 
"Those numbers can't be right, it must be a bug," an assumption often made in haste as we throw rocks at the software. The "we" sometimes includes "us", the perpetrators who wrote the code but considered it so obviously self-documenting there was no need to add comments.

Case in Point

In Morning Flight, the quickest way to order custom paper is to first select from a pick list a paper item similar to what you need to custom order. That way the program can auto-fill the screen, ready for you to edit. In programming terms that's known as inheritance, The custom paper screen no longer comes up empty, but has inherited, as a template, all the specs from the paper you highlighted in the pick list.

So here is the question: If all the specs are the same, why is the price different? Why does Morning Flight charge $52.70 for the pick list paper and $54.60 for the custom paper, $1.90 more? The answer is that not all specs have to stay in sync, the program can make inline adjustments. In this case, an adjustment in the markup: No matter what comes in from the pick list - In-Stock or Buy-It paper - what goes out always carries a Buy-It paper markup. Which explains the $1.90 difference.

In the My Store window below, the markup is 40% for In-Stock, but 45% for Buy-It, both user adjustable. Markup is the only parameter that has changed, and the program was smart enough to have made the adjustment on its own. Had the paper from the pick list been Buy-It instead of In-Stock, both prices would have been $54.60. Similarly, had the markup for In-Stock been the same as for Buy-It, that too would have canceled out the difference.

Some software vendors would call that artificial intelligence. It's not. It's just common sense.

 

 

 

 

Case #2

Yet to be reported . . .

If you discover what looks like a bug and works like a bug, it could well be a bug that needs to be disposed of quickly. If it's not a bug, we may include it here as another undocumented feature. Either way, we would appreciate hearing about any suspicious UFB sightings.