|
WebWord Weblog Posting Posting Date: September 26, 2002 The Virtue of Engineering Cynicism -- "Programmers always deal with metadata, not data: The programmer doesn't know what text the user will type into a particular box, but she does know that the text is supposed to represent a zip code, a phone number, etc."
Reader Comments...
Hmmmm. A very one dimensional, dilbertesque view of programmers that is superficially recognisable but misses the critical problem with programmers in relation to usability: Programmers are alienated from their users. We take refuge in our code because we have some control over it. We are allowed to control how we do something but not what we do. Man must cease to be the consumer and become a productive human being who is aware of and responds to his world creatively.
I liked what he had to say about how optimism gets twisted among developers: "is their optimism surfacing: deal straightforwardly and not only will the deal go through, but it will be a stronger deal in the long term. And, except for when they forget to mention the strengths of their products, the engineers are, of course, right. " I feel like this sometimes, and when I get slapped down I feel strangely offended and I take it personally. I work on this, of course, because it is never intended to be personal, but it's difficult to deal with. I am basically an optimist, and I'm being turned into a realist. Posted by: Lydia on September 27, 2002 01:58 PM
Home | Moving WebWord | Cool Books | Hot Web Sites
URL: http://webword.com/weblog/ ©1998-2005 by WebWord.com. All rights reserved. |