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I have a theory that software drives people insane

graybeard.ing

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Re: I have a theory that software drives people insane

#71

Post by fragmede »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #30
jghn wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 univer…

> The users pay your fat salary

In an idealized world, maybe, but enterprise software isn't paid for by its actual users, but by their company's executives/management.

Re: I have a theory that software drives people insane

#72

Post by layer8 »

zahlman wrote: post #50
burningChrome wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I think that over-reliance on analytics has had a similar effect I lost track of how many times the directors would tell us, "Since the analytics say A, we should do B." then the research person says, "Sure Jim, great idea, lets get a few rounds of useability research and confirm it first." Then the always predictable thing happens: Users never align with your analytics. Seeing data and seeing someone struggling t…

> Users never align with your analytics. Any good theories for how this happens (i.e. why the data fails to capture the struggle)?

Analytics don’t capture the “why” of what they measure, on the user side. Indicators may move in the seemingly right direction for the wrong reasons. Analytics typically can’t tell you what the user wanted to achieve. Knowing the “why” gives a better basis to decide on what changes to try, or to realize what’s actually wrong with the user-facing side of things. Another reason is that they tend to measure an average where in reality there is no average user.

Re: I have a theory that software drives people insane

#73

Post by anthonypasq »

hliyan wrote: post #31

I was about to post this thought on the latest "We're moving from tech/architecture X to Y" post on the HN front page today, but now I feel it belongs here. I was recently chatting with a friend about how we used to do so much more with so few developers: 20 years ago, we developed mission critical, real time software (trading systems) in C++ with team of a couple of dozen developers. The core trading kernel team was…

the average developer back then was much better. 50% of engineers in the average IT department produce zero or negative value. I worked at one of the largest financial institutions in the world and had coworkers that literally committed zero code for months.

Re: I have a theory that software drives people insane

#74

Post by fragmede »

Terr_ wrote: post #60
zug_zug wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+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."

Similar to "needs to be a platform" [0], another variant is "be a data company" where somehow the underpants gnomes will transform your moat of stored information into profit. [0] Read: "Needs to be pitch-able to investors as a magical 1000x growth unicorn."

it's no longer a theory. google paid millions for spirit airlines' emails and internal messages to be used as training data for their AIs.

Re: I have a theory that software drives people insane

#75

Post by zer00eyz »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #10
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…

Absolutely. I think that over-reliance on analytics has had a similar effect; compared to relying primarily on proper usability research and in-person user studies, doing that creates a detachment and distance that further removes the project from reality. How great the impact is depends on how management uses the data. If they use it add resolution to broad strokes from studies and the like, there may be no negative…

> I think that over-reliance on analytics has had a similar effect;

The over reliance on analytics combine with a lack of metrics and proper accounting.

If you are renting all your infrastructure knowing how people use your app, and what the COSTS of that are is kind of a big deal. If your high dollar client is your lowest margin one, thats a problem that is technical and financial as well as a product insight.

And that infrastructure your renting, it stopped making sense for a lot of orgs to do that almost a decade ago, but here we are where everything is in the cloud because capacity planning is a lost art and was a great throttle on the insanity that the post is describing.

Re: I have a theory that software drives people insane

#76

Post by stinos »

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…

For 2 larger projects I'm on, I'm both the developer and a user: on a regular basis I use the software myself. And not just for one-off tests. I really use it the way other users use it.

This has provided rather deep and interesting insights in software development for these particular products and in general. Or in OP's lingo: not a lot of potential for insanity at all. Because any new idea immediately gets regarded on 2 fronts: what does it take to implement and what does it really do for the user.

Re: I have a theory that software drives people insane

#77

Post by nyeah »

stinos wrote: post #76
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…

For 2 larger projects I'm on, I'm both the developer and a user: on a regular basis I use the software myself. And not just for one-off tests. I really use it the way other users use it. This has provided rather deep and interesting insights in software development for these particular products and in general. Or in OP's lingo: not a lot of potential for insanity at all. Because any new idea immediately gets regarded…

This approach is really worth pointing out and recommending. Not everyone is allowed / encouraged to realize how powerful it is.

Re: I have a theory that software drives people insane

#78

Post by ninju »

> A boring application that stores records in a database and lets people edit

> them doesn't sound especially impressive, while a distributed event-driven

> platform with a service mesh and realtime synchronization layer sounds like

> you're building NORAD.

Very well put

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