this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2024
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[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 month ago (6 children)

I have an app for my sprinkler system and it's a fucking nightmare. Not only is it basically just a web API, it's so transparently just a glorified browser with access to exactly one site that frequently my phone thinks that app will work for whatever else I'm trying to open.

Document? Sprinkler app. Web Page? Sprinkler app. Installing from a source other than Google? Oh you better believe the sprinkler app can do that.

Doing anything takes longer to load than it would take me to walk from anywhere on my property to the fucking box and hit whatever button I need to hit.

It frequently forgets what I entered for preferences. I can tell it a week ahead what days I want it to skip but if I do that more than 24 hours on advance I might as well not have done it at all.

Oh you want to make a payment online? Let your sprinklers do that for you. YouTube video? Sprinkler app. YouTube video about fixing your fucking sprinkler system? Sprinkler app.

Apparently the one thing it can't do is effectively manage my water usage. It's ONE job

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

shit that's amazing

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Document? Sprinkler app. Web Page? Sprinkler app. Installing from a source other than Google? Oh you better believe the sprinkler app can do that.

Android apps tell the system which URLs they can open. If you click a Google Maps link, it can prompt you to open it in the Google Maps app. It sounds like whoever created the sprinkler app misconfigured the app and it's saying that it can open all URLs, not just the URLs it cares about. They probably read a tutorial about how to make a webview in Android and didn't know what they were doing :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Almost certainly. If the guy who was making yandere simulator was tasked with a sprinkler app, it wouldn't be much worse than it currently is.

I don't know shit about fuck when it comes to programming, but I know bad programming when I see it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

I don't know shit about fuck when it comes to programming, but I know bad programming when I see it.

Thanks for this! I often wonder if non-programmers can see this. Such horrible programmers. And embarrassingly low bar for company outsourced it.

Some find it scary that AI might take programmers’ jobs. I like to think that it’s these type programmers being replaced, and I’m kinda keen on having that.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Just request a copy of the source code! Oh wait

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Yeah this is begging for [email protected] to replace that app.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

If I could rip that thing off the wall and replace it with a spigot I would.

My wife wants it, and she cares more about the grass than I do.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Is it actually opening up the Sprinkler app for all those other purposes, or giving you a choice dialog? If it's actually opening up the app, maybe installing Intent Intercept would at least make it a choice dialog, as it also tries to open everything (just to show information about the request; it's a dev tool).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I have never actually tried, it's just suggesting it as an app that can do those things.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

So, giving you what I called the choice dialog. That makes sense. Intent intercept wouldn't help then, it would just give you one more basically irrelevant choice to do all the things (although it's useful for developers).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

I'm sure it can't actually do any of those things, but it would be nice if it would stop suggesting that it could when I try to open up certain things