

How I learned to become a failure - 16g
http://digitalmash.com/journal/articles/how-i-learned-to-become-a-failure

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tom_ilsinszki
%s/small failure/reality checking/g

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joe_the_user
I had a job where my boss expected our small group of consultants to maintain
this "talk to clients a bit and then pull a rabbit out of your hat without
further feedback" approach. It's good to hear it broken down in the article.

For my ex-boss, this "magician" image was what justified a consultant's high
fees. Our actual assignment was a complete failure on multiple levels. Among
those levels, what I think is the most awful part of the _create-a-gold-
plated-thingy-that-'just-works'_ paradigm is that it discards the human
interaction part of development.

"Make it 'just work'" is a problematic meme now that it has come to permeate
society (Apple Computer's huge prestige clearly being a driver of this). The
problem I see is that algorithms/designs/platforms/technologies that "just
work" make the trade-offs involved invisible to the end user but the end user
is still effected by them and _sooner or later_ they need to actually think
about the trade-offs. Certainly, making your program "just work" - ie, not
require excess thought, training or manual configuration on the part of the
client, can be a good thing. The problem is when this approach dominates the
entirety of design and development.

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p0larboy
excellent article.. upvoted~

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alexkiwi
jason fried is not going to be happy with this guy haha

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InfinityX0
Like. I have no interest whatsoever in the article, but this headline was
paradoxically motivating for some reason. I really like it.

Don't get me wrong, the article is good and all that but the title informed
the article pretty obviously, and I knew what was to come. But since I did
know, that meant the title itself transfixed a little motivation to become a
bigger failure in my own life.

