Matt Heusser posted a Testing Challenge today to try and find the weirdest bugs on the parking cost estimator for Gerald R. Ford International Airport. Â There are a ton of comments on the post with different answers, however I’ve discovered that the designer of the program had his own ideas for time and space regarding when the future will actually loop into the past.
By entering the following date into the end time: “01/01/999999999990″ you’ll receive the following error
ERROR! YOUR EXIT DATE OR TIME IS BEFORE YOUR ENTRY DATE OR TIME
I used the innocuous start date of 01/01/2010.
To be fair to the original developer, all normal uses of this calculator work as expected except for dates that don’t exist (12/32/2010?) and it translates minutes that are too big (12:61) into the next hour’s equivalent. Â Also, it doesn’t deal with 24hr times at all also translating them into the next hour’s equivalent and since airports run most with 24 hour clocks it is strange that the tool wouldn’t allow for that entry (and forces the user to choose AM/PM). Also, what’s with the placement of the calendar icon under the time space?
Also to keep in mind is that the “bugs” in this software are unlikely to cause any real issues because there is no credit card or billing form attached to this.
They also handily use the disclaimer:
This parking calculator is provided for the convenience of travelers to estimate parking costs. Actual parking costs may vary depending upon exact times of arrival and departure. An additional Lost Ticket fee will be assessed if the original parking ticket cannot be produced when exiting the parking facilities.