programming: "It's not fun anymore"

[Darren Dirt]

http://stanford-online.stanford.edu/courses/ee380/030416-ee380-100.asx

Video of "Innovation and Conformity in a Microsoft World" -- a 2003 talk given by the brilliant Douglas Crockford.

via http://www.crockford.com/

[Shayne]

i can agree with your thread title.  I didn't RTFA but I have noticed that for me.  Ive been in the biz for about 7 years now and i've grown a little tired of the code-slaving aspect. I look forward to the management side a lot more now then I did before.

[Mr. Analog]

Personally speaking I enjoy the consulting aspect as much or more than the coding part. But I expect this is a natural evolution of going from coder to systems analyst.

It's like a soldier becoming a general.

[Darren Dirt]

If you haven't watched the whole video of the speech it's worth a lunch hour viewing. A lot of laughs throughout, but the speaker is brilliant yet clear in his thinking and delivery, and -- though anti-Microsoft a lot, sorry -- he makes a lot of valid yet HOPEFUL points about the future of software development.


On a half-related note, just stumbled upon this today:

Fitts Law -- A fascinating GUI-related "Quiz"
http://www.asktog.com/columns/022DesignedToGiveFitts.html

So you think you are an interaction designer? Not if you cannot answer all the following questions quickly and with authority.


If you're not an interaction designer, but you know one?or you are thinking of hiring one?slip them just the questions, and see how well they do. I've used variations of this quiz for years during the interview process to good effect.

These questions and answers assume that you have total control over all screen real estate, the OS, etc. Just pretend you are chief designer for Microsoft or Apple.

I never really thought too much about the "why" behind certain GUI decisions that are vastly different in Mac and PC and other OSes, for example... Now it'll be hard not to think about these things...



-found via Don "Pie Menus" Hopkins (discussed here, back in 2002 , see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pie_menu )