BBC Clock Inaccurate - 100 Days To Fix?

mikejuk writes "The BBC home page has just lost its clock because the BBC Trust upheld a complaint that it was inaccurate. The clock would show the current time on the machine it was being viewed on and not an accurate time as determined by the BBC. However, the BBC have responded to the accusations of inaccuracy by simply removing the clock stating that it would take 100 staffing days to fix. It further says: 'Given the technical complexities of implementing an alternative central clock, and the fact that most users already have a clock on their computer screen, the BBC has taken the decision to remove the clock from the Homepage in an upcoming update.' They added, '...the system required to do this "would dramatically slow down the loading of the BBC homepage", something which he said was "an issue of great importance to the site's users". Secondly, if the site moved to a format in which users across the world accessed the same homepage, irrespective of whichever country they were in, it would be "impossible to offer a single zonally-accurate clock."'"

Comments

Not-so-accurate source

[Sockatume]

I'm not sure I can trust a source which says "it has been stated that it would take 100 programmer hours to fix" then quotes a paragraph stating 100 staff days. Regardless it is harder than it looks: the BBC doesn't want to get into the business of running a time server, nor trying to automatically determine which time zone any particular visitor to the site happens to be in (by, what, IP address tracing?).

Re: Not-so-accurate source

[garyok]

The TV licensing chaps often like to think of themselves as some sort of police force, and will often try to threaten or cajole people in either of the above two categories into buying a license anyway, but they don't have a legal leg to stand on. They can't demand you buy a license or enter your home without permission or a warrant. IME, warrants are very rarely issued to the TV licensing chaps because the judges know they like to throw their weight around and bully people.

I don't know where you're hearing that from. I've gone round with a TV Licencing officer on his rounds through Watford and I've witnessed first-hand how they operate. He never entered a home without permission, he just asked politely and all but one person said yes (the one that said no actually threatened to punch our teeth out - pity we could see the TV tuned to BBC2 from the doorstep...) As far as I'm aware, about 50% of the visits resulted in no follow-up action due to compassionate reasons. The only ones that were referred for further action were people who could pay, but thought they should be allowed to get away with it.

I love the BBC, especially all the various documentaries and the occasional drama. But no-one else in our house watches live TV either and didn't see the point in paying the money, so to get all those BBC4 documentaries I like so much, I scour iPlayer to watch them after they've been broadcast and buy the DVD if and when they become available.

i.e. people like you.

100 days?

[ArsenneLupin]

Counting all the administrative overhead, the "testing", etc., this may well seem plausible.

It took one large Luxembourgish bank nine months to change SUPPORTED_OS = MAC into SUPPORTED_OS = Linux32 in a configuration file in a jar named LuxTrust_Gemalto_CryptoTI_Adapter_LIN32_1.4.jar (yes, they did indeed accidentally put the Mac config file into the Linux jar... it's that stupid...)

Another bank is celebrating the first year anniversary of this same bug right now as we speak :-) (unfixed yet, of course)

Reason for the slowness (in both cases): when fixing such a mixup, according to their procedures, the entire test suite (... which incidentally, didn't catch this bug in the first place...) needs to be re-run, and this takes weeks, and so they shy away from the expense.

So we end up in the paradoxical situation where the presence doesn't reduce the number of bugs seen in production, but actually increases it. Rather than catching bugs early, the test suite instead perpetuates existing bugs...