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Re:I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API by thenewwazoo on Thursday October 22, 2020 @04:18PM (#24862846)
The French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre was sitting in a cafe when a waitress approached him: "Can I get you something to drink, Monsieur Sartre?" Sartre replied, "Yes, I'd like a cup of coffee with sugar, but no cream". Nodding agreement, the waitress walked off to fill the order and Sartre returned to working. A few minutes later, however, the waitress returned and said, "I'm sorry, Monsieur Sartre, we are all out of cream -- how about with no milk?"
Re:I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API by zerocrates on Friday October 23, 2020 @03:10AM (#24866780)
Brings to mind the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy text adventure by Infocom where you start the game with an item called "no tea" in your inventory.
Re:I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API by brokenmachine on Thursday October 22, 2020 @06:49PM (#24864120)
I don't get it.
Re:I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API by pgcj_poster on Thursday October 22, 2020 @10:44PM (#24865526)
Sartre believed that it was impossible to abdicate the responsibility of making choices, because to choose to do nothing is still a choice -- in other words, "nothing" is a kind of something. So one might humorously imagine that Sartre would also think that "no cream" is a kind of something that could be different from "no milk."
Re:I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API by feintruled on Friday October 23, 2020 @08:37AM (#24868796)
Excellent! I once went to a local burger place - they have a menu full of the various types of burgers, all loaded with everything. My kids are super picky, so I asked for a burger, with nothing except the burger and the bun.

Server looked confused - but which burger did I want? It became apparent that while I could ask for a preset item and ask for removals, I could not actually go fully off menu. So I had to ask for "the cheese burger, without the cheese" (as somehow distinct to say, the bacon burger, without the bacon). I laughed at the ludicrousness of that, but now I see they were channeling Sartre! In retrospect it would have been a truly beautiful absurdity if see had come back and said "sorry, we have no cheese, do you want no bacon?"

Re:I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API by donarb on Friday October 23, 2020 @11:31AM (#24870536)
Like the scene from Five Easy Pieces with Jack Nicholson. He asked the waitress for an omelet with a side of toast. She says they don't have a side of toast, so he asks for a chicken salad sandwich, on toasted wheat bread, and hold the mayonnaise, the lettuce and the chicken salad.
Re:I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API by daemin on Friday October 23, 2020 @09:54AM (#24869491)
I get the feeling that it's also easier for the cashier to put it into the point of sale / ordering system. There are buttons for specific menu items, and then buttons to remove things from them, but no buttons to build a burger from scratch.
Re:I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API by withinboredom on Saturday October 24, 2020 @06:23AM (#24878230)
I remember working at the drive thru for Wendy’s. I learned all about some clever orders that saved you $0.50-2.00 by ordering things a certain way. I can’t remember anything specific, but I remember one time asking, “so you want an X?” And they came back with “no, put it in exactly how I told you.”
Re:I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API by gtirloni on Thursday October 22, 2020 @10:38PM (#24865490)
In the ice cream situation, broken and down mean the same thing. In the Sartre anecdote, milk and cream mean the same thing.
Re:I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API by DrScump on Friday October 23, 2020 @03:48AM (#24866991)
No, it was a logic error on the part of the server. Since he requested without cream, their lack of cream was irrelevant.