If you have a dialog box that may show filenames, please be aware that they may sometimes be long.

Take for instance the losers who wrote ClearCase. Here’s a not very helpful dialog box asking me about a file:

Hmm… should I overwrite this file locally? It’d be nice if I could SEE THE FRICKIN FILENAME!!!

Lessons :

1. Make sure to expand dialog boxes to fit the text you’re displaying
2. God has been kind enough to provide us with a standard MessageBox which enables Ctrl-C to copy the text of a message. Even if you work at ClearCase you should use this MessageBox
3. If you must choose between using ClearCase and sawing off your arm, lose the arm