Field doctrine
A crash with
an escape hatch
In 2004, Jon proposed a soft assertion: when an internal assumption fails, a power user could choose to risk continuing instead of having the program simply unravel the stack and quit.
The clever part is not a cheerful “ignore” button. It is giving the operator enough evidence, containment, and reversibility to make an informed choice.
Probe firstEach diagnostic reveals information that may change the sane decision.
Protect dataA recoverable inconvenience beats silent corruption in a jaunty hat.
Preserve agencySometimes continuing is exactly right, especially when the operation is reversible.
Live incident
Case 01 / 05
Assertion breached
Data risk
Recovery
Urgency
Diagnostic bank
Operator decision
Shift evaluation
0
Trainee Operator
“The SoftAssertion lets power users at least continue on in the face of programming errors.”
That tiny 2004 idea anticipates a humane design principle: failures should be legible, choices should be reversible, and software should respect competent users without pretending danger has vanished.
Inspired by Jon’s Soft Assertions.