Key paragraph:

“They’re much more important than the client, in their minds,” says Peter De Lorenzo, editor in chief of the car commentary site AutoExtremist.com. “They make ads to amuse themselves.”

Holy cats, that’s a bunch of people in software development, too, ainna?

I don’t normally work in the UX/UI design world, but I know enough from constantly filling out web forms that too many designs out there are destined for a special ring of data Hell. If you’ve followed any of my web form rants on Twitter, you may have heard this before…but it should be repeated.

Go learn her list of peccadilloes and think about your own. Then, bother your designers and developers when they do something convenient for themselves once, but annoying to users thousands of times.

(Thanks to gimlet for the link.)

UPDATE: Karen Lopez has emailed me to let me know she is a chick, not a guy. I’ve changed the pronouns and whatnot to reflect that.

“Trouble Tickets Are Your Business” in ST & QA Magazine.

Book recommendations in The Testing Circus.

Point of order, Mr. Chairman: Software development is neither art nor science.

Were it art, the product would be meaningful only in invoking thought or providing a comforting sense of beauty. I mean, you don’t use a painting or a concerto for something other than enjoying the painting or concerto. Unless you’re breaking prisoners of war with them or something.

Were it science, the product could be replicated over and over again by others in other organizations and come up with the exact same result. I’m not talking about duplicating CDs or packaging distros; I mean when one wanted to connect to a database, one would use the proven method that had been established, basically, by Isaac Newton. Software development is not that way; its experiments–that is, the development of individual projects or products–do not yield a similar result when done over a series of time and in different location.

What is software development, then? It is handicrafts.

• The end product does something. The end of the coding process is not some pretty Matrix-drizzle of green numbers to make everything pretty. The end of the coding process is some sort of tool. Ergo, the application is not a work of art. While crafting often produces just art, in other cases it produces something that does something else, however twee. Quilting produces a device that retains heat; woodworking produces furniture. And so on.
   
• The end product is unique. Assuming you’ve built a phonebook database, a Web site that allows users to enter into a sweepstakes, or a Web service that seeks and receives data from a database to dish to a presentation layer somewhere, you’ve built something different from all the others that have been built before, even those that do the exact same thing. If this were science, your process would yield a finished result that matched the others.
   
• The end product bears certain trademarks of the craftsmen. Come on, your fingerprints and foibles are all over your software. The tweaks and ways you do things are different from everyone else’s, and someone who’s familiar with your work and with the industry will see your marks on what you’ve done.
   
• Each end product will have unique defects. In handicrafting, it might be a little glue showing in the gaps of bonded surfaces, maybe a little nesting somewhere in a seam. Maybe they won’t be glaringly obvious, and only another craftsman will see them. Maybe they’re obvious enough that nobody will buy them from your table in the bazaar. Regardless, the defects will be unique to the product, and your other products even if they’re very similar products will have different defects. Or maybe you make the same mistakes over and over and your defects are your trademark.
   
• Best practices and technologies are faddish. The things you’re coding in and the ways you’re doing it are not necessarily the end result of some evolution or even rational processes. They might just be what someone read in a magazine and thought would be worth a try. Evaluating the practices’ effectiveness might become secondary to trying something novel. I know how to paint the glass into which I pour my candles–what if I try etching the glass? What, indeed?
   
• Truth does not determine what tools or technologies you use. You know, for that pyrography design, perhaps a wire nib is called for. However, your budget only allows enough for a cheap Walnut Hollow solid nib woodburning kit. As in software development, sometimes the “best” tool is the open-source product that meets some subset of your needs, but it’s free. So you make do. Like a scientist working with studying particles with a Moderately Sized Hadron Collider.
   
• The craftsmen are more like gossipy ladies at the Singer sewing classes than steely-eyed doctors. I mean, granted, even steely-eyed scientists can be a gossipy lot, but. Any time your craftsmen speak from authority, they’re speaking from some experience, some faddish magazine or blog articles, and/or some education, but they’re not as ex cathedra as they’d like you to think.

Does the metaphor break down? Assuredly. I am a mere craftsman. But if you try to pour software development into some metaphor to make it comprehensible to non-IT people, you could do worse. Like saying it’s an art or a science.

It’s 2011. Surely you can not consider a twentieth century technology now, right?

Well, here’s an indication that they’re still out there:

And trying to use Facebook, a modern gee-whizzed up Web site.

Feeling all excited about the prophecied end of IE 6? Microsoft hasn’t completely killed WebTV / MSN TV yet.

Microsoft continues to support the subscription service for existing WebTV and MSN TV customers.

(An explanation of “Roberta” here.)

From: Dave
To: Ocean Marketing
Dec 26, 2011, at 9:47 AM

I noticed the updated info on the webpage, and I don’t understand why there is absolutely no benefit given to those like me who have already ordered, and paid their money. You’ve had my money interest free for nearly two months, yet now ANY new order will get $10 off….meaning I should just cancel my order for 2 controllers, get my money back, then re-order.

My other questions is regarding item compatibility. Ocean Marketing seems to be involved with the Xtendplay controller holder, so I was wondering if the Avenger N-Controller can be used in conjunction with the Xtendplay (for both Xbox and PS3)? Thanks

From: Ocean Marketing
To: Dave
Dec 26, 2011 10:14 AM

Yes it can be used with xtend play if you remove the stand and no one is allowed to cancel and re order if we catch anyone doing it we will simply just cancel your order all together and you can buy it retail somewhere else.

Things happen in manufacturing if your unhappy you have 7 days from the day your item ships for a refund. You placed a pre order just like any software title the gets a date moved due to the tweaks and bugs not being worked out and GameStop or any other place holds your cash and im sure you don’t complain to activision or epic games so put on your big boy hat and wait it out like everyone else. The benefit is a token of our appreaciation for everyone no one is special including you or any first time buyer . Feel free to cancel we need the units were back ordered 11,000 units so your 2 will be gone fast. Maybe I’ll put them on eBay for 150.00 myself. Have a good day Dan.

When JasonS. alerted me to this story, I immediately thought about how I see similar attitudes when dealing with software releases and excuses for not fixing defects.

I mean, you get the normal arrogance of developers combined with a risk-to-punishment reasoning that says, “If the bug just happens to one person, it’s cool. Or at least it’s not a problem worth worrying about.”

Unless, of course, it’s a vocal user who then speaks up about problems he or she has and that others probably encounter. Then the value of your application drops in all users’ eyes as the Internet clogs with stories of YourApplicationSucks.com.

Your application and its interface are customer service and support. Think about the worst phone tree you endured to make something right or the worst bunch of “dropped” calls and runarounds you got that didn’t make something right. Is that your application in your users’ eyes?

Football’s big game is coming to the small screen.

For the first time ever the Super Bowl, along with some postseason NFL games, will be streamed online and through the league’s mobile apps, the NFL and partner Verizon Wireless announced Tuesday.

Good luck with that.

So what’s going to happen to your sites and applications when third party Internet calls start timing out because the whole Internet is going to be running at half speed?

There’s a lot of sugar in the gas tank if your car is fueled by software:

Car manufacturer Jaguar has had to recall nearly 18,000 of its X-Type cars after a serious software bug has been identified in the on-board system of the vehicle. The bug potentially stops a driver from turning off the cruise control system, which is more than a little dangerous.

Yeah, I know it’s an old story, but it took me a couple months after seeing the story to see again the advertisement it reminded me of.

Now, here’s this: Now Every Company Is A Software Company:

Ford sells computers-on-wheels. McKinsey hawks consulting-in-a-box. FedEx boasts a developer skunkworks. The era of separating traditional industries and technology industries is over—and those who fail to adapt right now will soon find themselves obsolete.

On one hand, hey, job opportunities if every company is a good software company and hires some QA people. On the other hand, the whole world is going to become even more buggy than it is now.

To which I add number 9:

9. Building the estimate based on the deadline or budget.
    
   Starting with the client’s budget or required go-live date, the estimate is put together to reflect how that number of hours or days will be spent. The estimate is not, therefore, based on any earnest guess at actual effort on the tasks at hand.

We’ve all been in on one of those projects.

(Link seen via tweet.)