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Why Enterprise Software Sucks

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Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#521

Post by tgv »

MarcScott wrote: post #364

I worked at a school that used the Frog VLE. There was a big push for us to use it for student assessment. I tried, I honestly did. 1. I used it to set homework assignments. 2. .py files were blocked and students couldn't upload them. 3. They submitted code as .txt instead. 4. I'd click on my class to view submissions, it showed the top 5 submissions. 5. I'd click on a submission and it would download. 6. I'd view th…

I adhere to "dogfooding": use what you make, and use it seriously. Then you'll understand what design documents so often fail to communicate. Programmers and certainly architects should get onto the work floor, and actually participate in the job, preferably before starting their "real" work, but certainly afterwards.

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#522

Post by MetalGuru »

AnAnonyCowherd wrote: post #458
cnst wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, to be clear, this has nothing to do with "classroom". The problem is people design these things without any sort of actual testing in actual conditions where the software is supposed to be used. Displaying 5 results per page is a bug, not a feature. Having restrictions on filetypes is a bug, not a feature. The same could go on to the rest of their "features". (My biggest pet peeve is date formatting — just give…

> The problem is people design these things without any sort of actual testing in actual conditions where the software is supposed to be used. I’ll do YOU one better. I work in an industry where software is still created by good, old-fashioned, by-the-book waterfall process, by outsourced developers. You know: the industry-proven, rock-solid, 20-year-out-of-date, slowest-and-least-agile methodology. Not only do the p…

Sounds god awful. What industry do you work in?

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#523

Post by MetalGuru »

tgv wrote: post #521
MarcScott wrote: post #364

I worked at a school that used the Frog VLE. There was a big push for us to use it for student assessment. I tried, I honestly did. 1. I used it to set homework assignments. 2. .py files were blocked and students couldn't upload them. 3. They submitted code as .txt instead. 4. I'd click on my class to view submissions, it showed the top 5 submissions. 5. I'd click on a submission and it would download. 6. I'd view th…

I adhere to "dogfooding": use what you make, and use it seriously. Then you'll understand what design documents so often fail to communicate. Programmers and certainly architects should get onto the work floor, and actually participate in the job, preferably before starting their "real" work, but certainly afterwards.

I agree. It’s just hard sometimes if you don’t experience the problem you’re trying to solve in your daily life. How can I dogfood construction software if I’ve never worked construction? Get a construction job?

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#524

Post by cipher_system »

Aeolun wrote: post #520
cipher_system wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's annoying and could probably be made easier, but these things are required by law. Also, not everyone can be trusted and it's not easy to tell.

No, but there are solutions that involve giving people a fixed amount of money every month for these small expenses (or a fixed amount per day for longer business trips).

I would assume most companies use per diem for business trips. Agree that it would be great with something similar for other small expenses.

But none the less, all company expenses needs to be verifiable by some kind of receipt in the accounting to be legal. At least thats how it works in my country. So someone has to enter that into some sort of system, ideally the economy people would take care of that.

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#525

Post by speedplane »

The listed reasons why enterprise software sucks are not terribly controversial, they are well known. Perhaps more controversially, here are some reasons why enterprise software is good and maybe even fun:

1. The domain that the software operates in is usually complex and varied.

2. The job that the software does is often meaningful, and helps people be more efficient or faster at a job, as opposed to simply entertaining them.

3. Users of the software are generally professionals, and can accept (and often demand) a deeper learning curve in exchange for more features.

4. It's generally more fun to develop software for smart devoted people than uncommitted interlopers.

5. Smart people using your software often directly challenge you to innovate (they make feature requests), rather than spending most of your time reverse engineering the psychology of your users based on aggregate behavior whom you rarely interact with.

6. Enterprise software often needs to dive deep into an industry or practice, they don't need to generalize to everyone.

7. This isn't a distinct benefit, but enterprise software does not need to be a large monolithic application, it can be nimble and fast moving like any other software.

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#526

Post by ridaj »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #381
ridaj wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Except I can count on one hand the number of fortune 500 enterprises that moved to gsuite over o365. That's maybe another way of showing that UX is not the winning differentiator in enterprise that it is in consumer. > This reads like someone who lives in the valley and thinks the valley is in any way reflective of corporate America. I don't live in that valley, and I fully know that it doesn't reflect the rest of…

> That's maybe another way of showing that UX is not the winning differentiator in enterprise that it is in consumer. But it is. That and useful features. Both of which Office has, and GSuite has not. I don't remember the name of that "Word lite" program that was included with Windows for free around Vista/7, which could open less sophisticated .doc files and was a default binding for .rtf files. But compared to Micr…

I have worked in enterprise for 20 years and have always been watching the vast majority of my colleagues (by the numbers) struggle to make anything but basic use of Office. My experience has been that there are a few advanced users who enjoy the mastery of it enough that they know it inside out, but the majority of enterprise workers really just do pretty basic stuff with it.

Meanwhile, the killer app of G Docs (collaboration) is a very frequently unanswered need. People emailing attachments with ridiculous names like "contract_v2_final_finalforreal.docx", making conflicting edits that cannot be reconciled, carrying USB sticks around because their PPT presentation is too big for email and they can never figure out how to use shared folders, etc.

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#527

Post by z3t4 »

dividido wrote: post #367

I write enterprise software for fortune 100 companies. If I put myself in the user’s shoes and had an alternative, I’d most likely uninstall what we built and jump ship. But they can’t. It’s an internal app and the user is forced to use it. I try and fight for what’s right but if I had a dollar everytime I heard “ we aren’t google/amazon” , “only xx people will use it”, “we are just doing this to get off the old tech…

So rewriting in a different framework has higher priority then userability? What will the new framework improve?

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#528

Post by ben509 »

gnicholas wrote: post #501
ben509 wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> More importantly, we wouldn't think of buying anything for a baby that has little magnets sewn into cloth. This attitude is insane and why so many people refuse to have kids.

Can you elaborate? There’s no need to put magnets in baby clothing, and there is some risk to doing so. Why do it then? Also, zippers take 3 seconds to do...if you don’t have 3 seconds to zip up the kid, you probably don’t have time to change the diaper underneath...

It's the histrionic piety that's the problem, not the particulars of the facts. It's in the context of watching parents killing themselves to prove to other parents how their children are their sole focus in life, and that anyone who would do less is an unworthy parent.

It's evident in an argument of the form "we wouldn't think of X," wherein compromise is simply declared out of bounds of any possible discussion.

Prior generations of parents did not do this; they struck a balance between their children's needs and their own needs. That's why there are new terms to describe the modern excess: helicopter parenting and even "snowplow" parenting[1]. These are not healthy developments for parents, children or society as a whole.

[1]: https://www.fatherly.com/love-money/what-caused-the-college-...

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#529

Post by elamje »

I think it would be interesting to answer the counter here: so who is doing enterprise software right?

Maybe they are disguised as a start up and hate the label, but what enterprise software companies are taking the right approach?

BaseCamp? Slack?

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#530

Post by galvin »

MetalGuru wrote: post #523
tgv wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I adhere to "dogfooding": use what you make, and use it seriously. Then you'll understand what design documents so often fail to communicate. Programmers and certainly architects should get onto the work floor, and actually participate in the job, preferably before starting their "real" work, but certainly afterwards.

I agree. It’s just hard sometimes if you don’t experience the problem you’re trying to solve in your daily life. How can I dogfood construction software if I’ve never worked construction? Get a construction job?

Who are you making the software for?

If it's your own company or a client, it's not too hard to get them to let you tag along with someone who will be using the software.

If you're launching a startup then you should have customers lined up before you start writing code. Ask them if you can watch them work to better understand how you can help them.

Most people are happy to share when you show interest in their work and it doesn't take much. A couple of days can really break your false assumptions and give you a good idea of what the workflow looks like. You can pick up on details like the order in which information is available.

It's worth doing more than once too, presumably your software is going save time and impact how they work so you'll need to refresh your knowledge.

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