1
kiki
2y

"If you think it would be cute to align all of the equals signs in your code, if you spend time configuring your window manager or editor, if put unicode check marks in your test runner, if you add unnecessary hierarchies in your code directories, if you are doing anything beyond just solving the problem - you don't understand how fucked the whole thing is. No one gives a fuck about the glib object model.

The only thing that matters in software is the experience of the user."

— Ryan Dahl (https://tinyclouds.org/rant.html)

Comments
  • 3
    Obviously, the ROI of those particular things is mostly below one, but most of the time programming should be done with the expectation that whatever you write will be read several times and on every occasion the time required to parse and understand your code will be taken from someone's life.
  • 5
    Agreed. That's why I just write code as fast as possible and ship it. I don't care if I or anyone else can understand it next week, I just want to tick the item off my list and solve the problem. As long as I change jobs every year it doesn't really matter what others think anyway.

    -- dick head
  • 1
    Not to mention that the check marks are part of the UI of a test runner.
  • 4
    Okay, this is a psychopathic approach. The purpose of configuring your window manager or editor is that you enjoy tinkering with them and you want them to _feel nice_. It's not an investment, it doesn't serve a purpose, beyond a certain point. And that's fine. The pretty slanted-curved borders on Chrome's tabs don't serve a purpose. The blue status bar in VSCode doesn't serve a purpose, in fact, it's a hindrance because #00F is a terrible background colour for legibility. Wallpapers don't serve a purpose, actually. The reason all these things still exist is that they make looking at the screen pleasant. User experience matters, but what this guy fails to understand is that everyone sitting at a computer or holding one in their hand is a user. Even when writing a program, programmers are users of their developer tools.
  • 1
    i think code legibility is essential for teamwork, specially since coding is not a team friendly activity. to say it's unnecessary is missing the point that to achieve a good user experience you need a good code, and to have that the code must be manageable, otherwise it'll escalate very poorly. if that wasn't the case we wouldn't have more and more user friendly languages and frameworks, that happen to sacrifice performance for legibility
  • 1
    do you want sql code on button event handlers? because that's how you get sql code on button event handlers
Add Comment