
Why IEEE Fellow Radia Perlman hates technology - abennett
http://www.itworld.com/networking/158579/advice-engineers-ieee-fellow-radia-perlman
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pkeane
Great stuff!

"But the world would be a better place if more engineers, like me, hated
technology. The stuff I design, if I'm successful, nobody will ever notice.
Things will just work, and be self-managing. Though, I've learned that some
people like to configure things, so I usually design in knobs for them to play
with, and perhaps improve things, but any setting of the knobs will still work
correctly.

When engineers [who] just love this stuff design something, we wind up with a
system that asks an innocent person attempting to install email, "Do you want
POP or IMAP?" One common comment engineers make is that we need "more user
training". That's just wrong. Instead of expecting humans to adapt to an
interface slapped together by engineers, engineers should strive to create a
system that is designed for humans in their natural form. "

~~~
johnzabroski
Her book on networking is the most frank and direct and easy to understand
book I've ever read. She cuts straight to the chase, including saying stuff
like, (paraphrased) "and after a few rounds of committee meetings, you get a
complete incomprehensible mess, but these are the root issues they are talking
about and the mess derives from two different views on committees on how to
view networks..."

~~~
haberman
I presume you're referring to this book?
[http://www.amazon.com/Interconnections-Bridges-Switches-
Inte...](http://www.amazon.com/Interconnections-Bridges-Switches-
Internetworking-Protocols/dp/0201634481)

(I'm posting the link here because it took some searching to find the right
book and in its current edition).

~~~
johnzabroski
Yes, that is it. Obviously my rendition of the paraphrasing is not as well
said as her actual quote, but you get the idea.

