<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 29 June 2011 00:10, Jay Ashworth <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jra@baylink.com">jra@baylink.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div class="im">----- Original Message -----<br>
> From: "Daniel Kristjansson" <<a href="mailto:danielk@cuymedia.net">danielk@cuymedia.net</a>><br>
<br>
> On Tue, 2011-06-28 at 16:06 +1000, Julius Roberts wrote:<br>
> > My point in raising this is that it is all well and good to have<br>
> > developed complicated software for some fantastic task, but if it<br>
> > doesn't work the way people might usually expect it to, then that in<br>
> > my mind is it's not reasonable to blame the user for their poor<br>
> > perception of the issue. There's complicated, and then there's just<br>
> > plain poorly executed.<br>
><br>
> All tools fail to work the way someone expects them too. When a<br>
> developer replies to a complaint with "it's working as designed"<br>
> that doesn't necessarily imply that the design is correct, but<br>
> it puts the onus on the complainant to convince others that the<br>
> way they think it should work is superior*. And if they are not<br>
> developers or paying someone who is, then they additionally need<br>
> to convince someone else to make it happen.<br>
<br>
</div>That "all tools fail to work the way *someone* expects them to" -- IE:<br>
that there can always be found someone who will be stonkered by the<br>
present design -- is true, but not really a counter-argument to any<br>
*specific* accusation that a design point violates the Principle of Least<br>
Astonishment.<br>
<br>
Not, Daniel, as you note, that that carries any water in the FOSS<br>
community -- which has always been, IME, one of the weaknesses of the<br>
FOSS community. Having done both programming and analysis/design for<br>
many years, I can testify that some of the best coders on the planet<br>
cannot design their way out of a paper bag. And there are some good<br>
designers who can't code very well, too.<br>
<br>
Architecture and contracting are two separate disciplines when people<br>
are getting paid to do them, but, you see, design is widely viewed as<br>
"the fun part", so precisely the people that I think FOSS projects need:<br>
designers, who may not be good coders -- are the people who get left by<br>
the side of the road; FOSS is not a "meritocracy"... it's a "code-ocracy".<br>
If you can't write it yourself, you'd better be a *damned* good salesperson.<br>
<br>
Cheers,<br>
-- jra<br>
<font color="#888888">--<br><br></font></blockquote><div>I expect my shovel to dig its self, therefore it doesn't work the way I expect :(<br><br>Anthony <br></div></div><br>