Chapter 35. The Power of No

How many times have you used a piece of software that was full of incredibly convoluted features, strange decisions, and unusable interfaces? Have you ever wanted to physically or verbally abuse a computer because it just wouldn't do things right, or you couldn't figure out how to make it function properly? And how often have you thought, "How could any programmer think this was a sane idea?"

Well if you've ever experienced any of those things, your next thought might have been something like "**** this computer" or "**** the silly programmer who made it behave this way". After all, aren't programmers and hardware designers to blame for the crazy behavior of the system? Well, yes, to some extent they are. But after being intimately involved in software design for many years, I now have another reaction to poorly-implemented features. Instead of becoming angry with the programmer who implemented the system...