I have a theory that software drives people insane • Hacker News Board

Re: I have a theory that software drives people insane

#21

Post by j45 » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 5:16 PM UTC

bob1029 wrote: post #4

Software development untethered from the practical realities of the customer / user is what drives people insane. When developers are required to interact with the customer on a regular basis , the freewheeling effects described in this article are damped massively. The potential for insanity goes off the charts when the development team is siloed away in solitary confinement and the only interactions with the client…

Beautifully articulated.

Software that is not about the user and more about the developers or the providers struggles with alignment and optimizing for the outcomes of the user instead of their own.

Re: I have a theory that software drives people insane

#22

Post by AnimalMuppet » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 5:19 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #7

bob1029 wrote: post #4

Software development untethered from the practical realities of the customer / user is what drives people insane. When developers are required to interact with the customer on a regular basis , the freewheeling effects described in this article are damped massively. The potential for insanity goes off the charts when the development team is siloed away in solitary confinement and the only interactions with the client…

> The potential for insanity goes off the charts when the development team is siloed away in solitary confinement and the only interactions with the client occur via some prison guard known as "project manager" sliding notes under the door. But... but what would Project Managers do, then? Anyway the key thing for any software developer AND Project Managers to do is regularly work first level helpdesk.

What would Project Managers do? Manage backlog. Set priorities. See that the one customer gripe from someone's eccentric old Uncle George does not re-architect the entire UI, no matter how fervently Uncle George believes in it. Do the same as the previous sentence, when "Uncle George" is in upper management.

Re: I have a theory that software drives people insane

#23

Post by FLeXMurphy » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 5:19 PM UTC

It is not the software, it is the internet. Something Awful already had it figured out: The internet makes you stupid.

Re: I have a theory that software drives people insane

#24

Post by sodapopcan » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 5:20 PM UTC

bob1029 wrote: post #4

Software development untethered from the practical realities of the customer / user is what drives people insane. When developers are required to interact with the customer on a regular basis , the freewheeling effects described in this article are damped massively. The potential for insanity goes off the charts when the development team is siloed away in solitary confinement and the only interactions with the client…

> Working with the customer sometimes sucks.

Sometimes it sucks, but often it's awesome. I love seeing people use what I built for them. It was also very enlightening doing prototyping and watching the customers use it. Often they would ask for something that they didn't realize they didn't actually want until they used it. Working directly with them saved potentially months of building out features that would never be used.

Re: I have a theory that software drives people insane

#25

Post by AnimalMuppet » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 5:21 PM UTC

iamcalledrob wrote: post #15

> Leaving things alone is an underrated engineering skill. Truer words have never been spoken.

"It is often easier to not do something stupid than it is to do something smart."

Re: I have a theory that software drives people insane

#26

Post by zug_zug » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 5:21 PM UTC

randusername wrote: post #8

My observation is simply that tech leaders misinterpret rewards from the market in conquering some abstract representation of a facet of a domain with conquering the domain itself. Then they become egomaniacal. Did you conquer commercial real-estate ushering in the future of work and society, or did you build a handy scheduling app? Did you have a neat idea for an online community or did you revolutionize human conne…

+1 .

I think it takes a certain type of mental or emotional deficit to forfeit all of your free time and the majority stake in your company for funding for a tiny shot at hitting a grand-lam.

"Not everything needs to be a platform". I remember a 10 person company that did translation dispatch for medical needs in California. And the CEO was insisting we needed to someday "become a platform."

Re: I have a theory that software drives people insane

#27

Post by icantevenhold » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 5:21 PM UTC

bob1029 wrote: post #4

Software development untethered from the practical realities of the customer / user is what drives people insane. When developers are required to interact with the customer on a regular basis , the freewheeling effects described in this article are damped massively. The potential for insanity goes off the charts when the development team is siloed away in solitary confinement and the only interactions with the client…

I disagree - it’s best never to talk to users because they have no idea what good quality is and will constantly push you to implement stupid features that only they uniquely need because of their fucked up business practices.

Or weaken your security so it works with their fucked up legacy firewall that cant ever be changed and so on.

Talking to users -> not even once.

Might be only this bad in B2B software

Re: I have a theory that software drives people insane

#28

Post by icantevenhold » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 5:24 PM UTC

iamcalledrob wrote: post #15

> Leaving things alone is an underrated engineering skill. Truer words have never been spoken.

It’s an underrated life skill and was discovered by Lao Tsé probably around 2500 years ago

Re: I have a theory that software drives people insane

#29

Post by add-sub-mul-div » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 5:25 PM UTC

FLeXMurphy wrote: post #23

It is not the software, it is the internet. Something Awful already had it figured out: The internet makes you stupid.

And they even figured that out before Cambridge Analytica happened.

Re: I have a theory that software drives people insane

#30

Post by Brian_K_White » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 5:26 PM UTC

jghn wrote: post #19

bob1029 wrote: post #4

Software development untethered from the practical realities of the customer / user is what drives people insane. When developers are required to interact with the customer on a regular basis , the freewheeling effects described in this article are damped massively. The potential for insanity goes off the charts when the development team is siloed away in solitary confinement and the only interactions with the client…

The problem is it's often the devs themselves who request the siloing. I used to assume otherwise, as I think the way you do. And then I had a lot of my devs rebelling because I was keeping them from their "real work" by having them deal with users.

I just call them not great developers. The users pay your fat salary and you yourself are a user for everything else in the world and at all other times. It's not some icky burden to talk to them or let them talk to you, it's the job. If you don't like the job, then you don't like the job, and should not be doing the job.

I don't have a lot of patience or sympathy for this attitude even though it's practically universal. There might be a few legitimate cases where someone basically has a handicap where they are clinically incapable, but then that's a handicap like a broken leg. A defect. Maybe it's ok to make allowances for them in the name of equality but it's absolutely making allowances, and should not be a norm and should not be something just everyone gets to claim for their mere comfort and convenience. IMO anyway if I were king and all that.