Editing 1700: New Bug

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[[Cueball]] asks if an off-panel character can look at his bug report. The person asks if it's a "normal one," and not a "horrifying" one which proves that the entire project is "broken beyond repair and should be burned to the ground." This implies that there have been reports of the "horrifying" variety in the past.
 
[[Cueball]] asks if an off-panel character can look at his bug report. The person asks if it's a "normal one," and not a "horrifying" one which proves that the entire project is "broken beyond repair and should be burned to the ground." This implies that there have been reports of the "horrifying" variety in the past.
  
βˆ’
Cueball promises that it is a normal one but it turns out that the server crashes when a user's password is a resolvable URL, which implies that the server is in some way attempting to resolve passwords as if they were URLs. A resolvable URL is one that is syntactically correct and refers to a find-able and accessible resource on the internet (i.e. does not return a {{w|HTTP_404|404 error}} or equivalent when resolved). Therefore a resolvable URL is a {{w|fully qualified domain name}} or a valid IP address that points to a valid server, and it can optionally specify a resource that exists on that server. Normally there is no reason for a system to treat a password as if it were a URL β€” and testing if a password is a resolvable URL would be a horrible thing to do as it would involve sending the password over the internet in a (at the time the comic was written) most likely completely unencrypted format.
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Cueball promises that it is a normal one but it turns out that the server crashes when a user's password is a resolvable URL, which implies that the server is in some way attempting to resolve passwords as if they were URLs. A resolvable URL is one that is syntactically correct and refers to a find-able and accessible resource on the internet (i.e. does not return a {{w|HTTP_404|404 error}} or equivalent when resolved). Therefore a resolvable URL is a {{w|fully qualified domain name}} or a valid IP address that points to a valid server, and it can optionally specify a resource that exists on that server. Normally there is no reason for a system to treat a password as if it were a URL β€” and testing if a password is a resolvable URL would be a horrible thing to do as it would involve sending the password over the internet in a (at the time the comic was written) most likely completely unencrypted version.
  
 
Also, Cueball specifically states that the server is crashing, rather than his application. While this could be an example of misused terminology on the part of Cueball or Randall, given Cueball's history (for example causing the most basic console commands to fail in [[1084: Server Problem]] or other tech issues as seen in [[1586: Keyboard Problems]]) his choice of terms is probably accurate. In the context of web services the server refers to either the computer itself or the program that responds to web requests and executes the user's (i.e. Cueball's) application. Cueball would be in charge of building the application. The importance of this distinction is that a typical system has safe guards in place at many levels to prevent a misbehaving application from crashing anything other than itself. So for his application to crash the server (either the computer itself or the server software hosting his application) would require his application to be operating in a way far outside of the normal, which has been the case for Cueball in previous comics. Alternatively, the project might include its own server software without the safeguards. In either case it is clear that Cueball's issue is far from normal, for which reason the off-panel person gives up and decides that burning the project to the ground is the only solution, telling Cueball ''I'll get the {{w|Charcoal_lighter_fluid|lighter fluid}}''.
 
Also, Cueball specifically states that the server is crashing, rather than his application. While this could be an example of misused terminology on the part of Cueball or Randall, given Cueball's history (for example causing the most basic console commands to fail in [[1084: Server Problem]] or other tech issues as seen in [[1586: Keyboard Problems]]) his choice of terms is probably accurate. In the context of web services the server refers to either the computer itself or the program that responds to web requests and executes the user's (i.e. Cueball's) application. Cueball would be in charge of building the application. The importance of this distinction is that a typical system has safe guards in place at many levels to prevent a misbehaving application from crashing anything other than itself. So for his application to crash the server (either the computer itself or the server software hosting his application) would require his application to be operating in a way far outside of the normal, which has been the case for Cueball in previous comics. Alternatively, the project might include its own server software without the safeguards. In either case it is clear that Cueball's issue is far from normal, for which reason the off-panel person gives up and decides that burning the project to the ground is the only solution, telling Cueball ''I'll get the {{w|Charcoal_lighter_fluid|lighter fluid}}''.

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