Take CTRL! Shallow minds ponder the DEEP spectre of DARK CACHE

Something for the Weekend, Sir? If in doubt, right-click. It’s a motto that has served me well and stood the test of time. Can’t locate a command under multiple sub-menus? Right-click – it’s probably in the contextual menu. Can’t remember what the command is called? Right-click – you’ll find it there. Have absolutely no idea what to do next? Right-click – it will alleviate the boredom.

One thing that I have learned from putting my motto into practice all these years is that the quality and usefulness of right-click pop-up menus have nothing to do with good software design. More often than not, program commands have ended up in the contextual menu, not as the result of extensive user interface planning, but because the developer either forgot or didn’t know how to put them somewhere else.

The inability to copy-paste with keyboard shortcuts in Windows’ MS-DOS command-line mode is a classic example. Imagine the conversations that went on during the development of that little gem. “Ooh look, guys, users won’t be able to do CTRL+V because we’ve set up CTRL to do something that they almost certainly will never want. Any ideas? What’s that? Allow the obscure ‘Break’ action that most users have never heard of to hog a universally accepted key command and instead shovel genuinely useful things like ‘Copy’ and 'Paste’, which they’ll probably want every time they run this utility, into a right-click menu? Brilliant, let’s do it!”

This simply reinforces the strength of my motto: can’t work out how to do anything in this dumb-arse piece of software shit? If in doubt, right-click.

When I share this contextual menu top-tip with colleagues and trainees, it is generally well-received. Whether they are power users hunting listlessly around arcane ribbon bars or beginners who “always wondered what that right-hand mouse button was for”, they can appreciate the simple logic of a right-click.

Less useful is the ‘software secret’ – a helpful tip for achieving something nifty in your software but can only be done through a ridiculous sequence of unrelated actions. Speed up your work, they say, by clicking on the corner handle, then hold down your spacebar, press the tilde key four times, hit PageDown five times, click your heels three times and recite out loud “There’s no place like meme”.

Come to think of it, one of my favourite gaming shortcuts involved repeatedly tapping a button on the PlayStation 2 controller to the beat of “Ding-dong! The witch is dead. The witch is dead. The witch is dead” in order to get unlimited plays in Total Drivin’. Yet software shortcuts, tricks and tips ought to be easy for users to find and easy to remember, not the devil spawn from the delicate mind of a lonely programmer.

Perhaps all software has stuff like this hidden away in sub-routines, reserved for those “in the know”. Maybe it’s possible to persuade your email package to reject all spam instantly.

Just recently, working on the fringes of an enterprise-wide development project, I observed that certain changes to user preferences were not being retained. Quick as a flash, one of the team blurted out what has become the project cliché:

“Have you cleared your cache?”

You’d think this is every bit as good as my motto about right-clicking, but you’d be wrong. My motto usually produces a fairly positive response, sometimes even gratitude. But challenging people as to whether they have done something they didn’t expect to have to do simply to get the software working as it ought to do in the first place, and implying that it’s their fault for not doing it, just pisses them off.

For this reason, it is a bone of contention on the team. Some of the more technical guys insist that repeatedly clearing the browser cache whenever something looks odd is (or should be) unnecessary, while others closer to the front line of user acceptance swear by the technique. Arguments ensue, voices are raised, fisticuffs are hinted at. I have noticed that the anti-cache-clearance guys now sit together at their own pod of desks, away from everyone else, while the pro-cache-clearance gang appear to be sporting neck tattoos that depict a skull and two daggers with ‘F5’ emblazoned in fiery letters.

Not wanting to fall into either camp, I reply honestly that yes, indeed, I had cleared my cache.

“Ah, but did you DEEP CLEAR your cache?”

Do what? Is there a mysterious ‘dark cache’ of which that I had hitherto been blissfully unaware? Perhaps it doesn’t stop there. Are there further levels of DEEP DEEP cache that need DEEP DEEP DEEP clearing? Is there a kind of resilient cache acne that only a course of Oxy can cure? Should I buy a bottle of ’New Anti-Cache Formula’ Cillit Bang?

While I ponder the ramifications of multiple layers of ‘dark cache’, a dissenting voice is raised among the doubters. A guttural whisper breaks the eery silence – “Infidel!” – followed by the rumbling of pedestal drawers being opened all around the office, followed by the metallic clinking of flick-knives and meat cleavers being made ready.

I take my leave just as the senior systems' architect leaps over his desk, screaming like a banshee, katana in hand, to attack the chief test analyst, who back-somersaults to avoid being sliced in two and sends a salvo of shuriken flying back. All hell breaks loose as I watch from behind closing lift doors.

Tuesdays, eh? ®