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Subject:respect for the button slogan From:"Mandy Wells" <mandyw -at- platespin -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 23 Aug 2001 15:16:46 -0400
--Doug wrote:
> > "Real programmers don't document. If it was hard to write, it
> > should be hard
> > to understand."
> > ~Slogan button seen at a techie convention
>
> I would have laughed in the face of anyone wearing that button. For a
> programmer, creating a document that's hard to understand *is
> easy*.
> <snip>
Well, now I understood the "it" in "If it was hard to write, it should
be hard to understand." to refer to the PROGRAM the programmer has
written, and not the documentation. Read that way it makes a bit more
sense--programmers sweat blood getting programs coded, they want users
to have an equally intense (or flat-out difficult) time using the
program. The way I interpreted it, I though it was pretty funny, having
worked with a few developers who had the attitude that they just made
the program work--it was up to the users (and the technical writer) to
figure out HOW it worked.
And that sig line is right up there with the one someone else on the
list was using from About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design,
about why developers shouldn't be allowed to do interface design, as
their choices will relate less to good design and more to ease-of-coding
(the actual quote is much more eloquent). Both sig line have that ring
of undeniable truth.
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A landmark hotel, one of America's most beautiful cities, and
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IPCC 01, Oct. 24-27 in Santa Fe. http://ieeepcs.org/2001/
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