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My Lack of Attention

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Re: My Lack of Attention

#21

Post by hypertele-Xii »

throwaway4good wrote: post #18
hypertele-Xii wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like advertizing gospel to me. It implies that people aren't actively looking for better solutions to their problems, which is just blatantly false. If industries spent all of their marketing budget on research and development, we'd live in a very different world. Maybe even a better one. A world where companies aren't asking "how can we fool people into buying more of what we're already making" and instead as…

“ Quality always rises to the top. That's a law of nature.” That is definitely not a law of nature.

Then why do all social animals organize into hierarchies?

Re: My Lack of Attention

#22

Post by jeffreygoesto »

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #16
bruce511 wrote: post #7

So here's the thing. It takes work and effort to get attention. "if you build it, they will come". Never has one cliche been so exactly wrong. Programmers, myself included, believe(d) that the code is the product. That the code will speak for itself. That being "better" (for some definition of better) is enough. If I build it, they will come. The truth though, the code is about 10% of the effort to make a successful…

Sounds like advertizing gospel to me. It implies that people aren't actively looking for better solutions to their problems, which is just blatantly false. If industries spent all of their marketing budget on research and development, we'd live in a very different world. Maybe even a better one. A world where companies aren't asking "how can we fool people into buying more of what we're already making" and instead as…

Counter example: VHS

Re: My Lack of Attention

#23

Post by arinlen »

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #16
bruce511 wrote: post #7

So here's the thing. It takes work and effort to get attention. "if you build it, they will come". Never has one cliche been so exactly wrong. Programmers, myself included, believe(d) that the code is the product. That the code will speak for itself. That being "better" (for some definition of better) is enough. If I build it, they will come. The truth though, the code is about 10% of the effort to make a successful…

Sounds like advertizing gospel to me. It implies that people aren't actively looking for better solutions to their problems, which is just blatantly false. If industries spent all of their marketing budget on research and development, we'd live in a very different world. Maybe even a better one. A world where companies aren't asking "how can we fool people into buying more of what we're already making" and instead as…

> It implies that people aren't actively looking for better solutions to their problems, which is just blatantly false.

Not really. Think about it for a moment: are there more people actively searching for better solutions to each and every single problem they may or may not know they have? Or are there more people like you and me who go about their day just fine completely oblivious that there might be out there a far better way of doing things, or not even bothering to spend a second to address some nuisance they have?

> If industries spent all of their marketing budget on research and development, we'd live in a very different world.

Yes, it would be a world where fortunes were spent on R&D whose outcome benefitted no one at all because no one ever heard about the outcome.

Also, as a corollary to your anti-marketing stance, multiple redundant R&D projects would be wasting resources developing stuff that was already developed and reinventing the wheel primarily because no one knew that it was already done.

Re: My Lack of Attention

#24

Post by coldtea »

>I am not a person who needs or even wants to gain attention (...) The problem for me start's when other software gets more attention and I know mine is better or at least even and I was first.

There's some contradiction here...

Re: My Lack of Attention

#25

Post by coldtea »

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #16
bruce511 wrote: post #7

So here's the thing. It takes work and effort to get attention. "if you build it, they will come". Never has one cliche been so exactly wrong. Programmers, myself included, believe(d) that the code is the product. That the code will speak for itself. That being "better" (for some definition of better) is enough. If I build it, they will come. The truth though, the code is about 10% of the effort to make a successful…

Sounds like advertizing gospel to me. It implies that people aren't actively looking for better solutions to their problems, which is just blatantly false. If industries spent all of their marketing budget on research and development, we'd live in a very different world. Maybe even a better one. A world where companies aren't asking "how can we fool people into buying more of what we're already making" and instead as…

>It implies that people aren't actively looking for better solutions to their problems, which is just blatantly false.

No, they don't.

The majority go with the defaults, and most of the rest stick to the first thing that "works for them".

If they try something else it's usually because of either mass promotion (like with Java in the late 90s) or hype by a smaller team of early adopters (like with Node and such), not by patiently looking and evaluating solutions alone.

>Quality always rises to the top. That's a law of nature.

That's not even close to a law of nature.

In fact, "crap rises to the top" might be closer to being that. I mean, if you want a blatant example, see the music top-10.

Re: My Lack of Attention

#26

Post by watwut »

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #21
throwaway4good wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“ Quality always rises to the top. That's a law of nature.” That is definitely not a law of nature.

Then why do all social animals organize into hierarchies?

First of all, it is not correct statement about all social animals.

And second, hierarchical organization does not mean at all quality is on top.

Re: My Lack of Attention

#27

Post by baxtr »

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #16
bruce511 wrote: post #7

So here's the thing. It takes work and effort to get attention. "if you build it, they will come". Never has one cliche been so exactly wrong. Programmers, myself included, believe(d) that the code is the product. That the code will speak for itself. That being "better" (for some definition of better) is enough. If I build it, they will come. The truth though, the code is about 10% of the effort to make a successful…

Sounds like advertizing gospel to me. It implies that people aren't actively looking for better solutions to their problems, which is just blatantly false. If industries spent all of their marketing budget on research and development, we'd live in a very different world. Maybe even a better one. A world where companies aren't asking "how can we fool people into buying more of what we're already making" and instead as…

This topic is well researched. Those who actively look and are open to new solutions are called “Early adopters” and are just a tiny minority of the entire target audience.

But even they won’t find you if you don’t have an SEO-optimized page, for example, to give you a somewhat extreme example. Just doing nothing and waiting for someone to come is not an option.

Re: My Lack of Attention

#29

Post by vineyardmike »

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #21
throwaway4good wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“ Quality always rises to the top. That's a law of nature.” That is definitely not a law of nature.

Then why do all social animals organize into hierarchies?

Look to every world leader. Is it apparent, agreed upon, or even reasonable to assume they’re the “quality” for their locale? No, they’re the best at marketing, or “campaigning”.

Re: My Lack of Attention

#30

Post by nonrandomstring »

bruce511 wrote: post #7

So here's the thing. It takes work and effort to get attention. "if you build it, they will come". Never has one cliche been so exactly wrong. Programmers, myself included, believe(d) that the code is the product. That the code will speak for itself. That being "better" (for some definition of better) is enough. If I build it, they will come. The truth though, the code is about 10% of the effort to make a successful…

"I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all."

It's true that effort helps success, and working for visibility is as important as working on making something great.

But sometimes life is just arbitrary.

Anyone who has worked in the "pop" media knows this. Artists pour their life and soul into films, symphonies and albums that get no listeners. They practice guitar for 10,000 hours and agonise over each note of a composition. They push and nothing happens, and they live in perpetual hope of "being discovered" in a world of overwhelming over-supply. One day some kid sticks a bangin' donk on a boing sound and it goes straight to the top of the charts with no explanation.

Unfair? Unjust?

Not really, if you allow for the essential randomness of things. Perhaps we put far too much belief in our ability to value things, and that includes marketing and communication as much as "quality" of design and execution.

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