Rant - FreeCen changes

[Berlin-Bob]

"so, when the program screen said "type in 4 digits", I'd type 3 digits, then I'd try 5 digits, then some letters etc etc"

... a variation of that is sometimes known as the "monkey test" : what does the program do, if a monkey just presses random keys and one them is "enter" !!!!
(off-topic, but these days you could rename it "politician test" : just replace 'monkey' in the above defintion with 'politician' !)

Bob
(also an IT veteran - started programming with punch cards and tapes)

[majm]

<sup>Politicans Test ...

Here in Australia we can change our Prime Ministers without interference from us, the voters, but umm much doubt as to if any of them know how to actually CODE anything except they are all good at Polliespeak  and weasel words</sup> 



JM
 

[KGarrad]

IMHO it all started to go wrong with the advent of Agile methodology?!

Lots of meetings - very little productive output.
or
A Triumph of Activity over Achievment!

[Forfarian]

Another MAJOR flaw in the new version is that you can't use wildcards in a name unless you specify the exact place. So it is now close to useless for finding people called, for example, Ann/Anne/Anna/Annie or Jean/Jane/Jeannie/Jenny who moved from one parish to the next between censuses. Or William abbreviated to Wm, or James to Jas, or Robert to Robt, Margaret/Marget/Margt and so on. You have to search separately for every conceivable spelling variant.

Thank goodness the old version is, for the moment, working fine.

[MonicaL]

Whilst the option to view previous/next households is still there, it is limited and only goes so far and stops (which didn't help in my search at all).

I tried doing the search on the old site (thanks for that info, Forfarian) and i was able to continue going back or forward until I found the info I needed (surrounding streets to the original address I had).

Monica

[Rena]

I don't like the new layout, not only because of having to work out the ages, but also there's no occupation given in the results list.  I still use the original website, which was very useful only last week by not entering any name but only asking for search results of "stationer" and "bookseller"..... due to my trying to find an occupational link between some surnames in my tree.