(semi OT) For those that remember (and those that don't)

[Darrin Chandler]

On Wed, Dec 12, 2007 at 09:26:12AM -0700, Matt Graham wrote:
> After a long battle with technology, Darrin Chandler wrote:
> > There's a long message about useful work somewhere inside me, but it'll
> > have to stay buried for now since I don't have time right now. Besides,
> > it's probably OT here, and should be put on a (gasp!) web site or blog.
> 
> "Useful work is in the eye of the beholder"?  Really, the definition of useful 
> work keeps changing as user expectations keep changing.  It's frustrating in 
> some ways.

Oh, I don't know about that. Sure, the landscape changes rapidly, but it
has been that way for a loooong time. What I'm talking about is using
computers to actually *DO* something, rather than concentrating on eye
candy.

For instance, I read somewhere a good while back about an author who was
an early adopter of computers and word processors. Back in the day they
had WordStar or whatever and they found their productivity go down
because they spent too much time spellchecking and going back and
correcting grammar. Because this author (David Gerrold?) was smart, they
kept using WordStar but just wrote straight out like they used to, and
only THEN went back to proof. Then came GUI and WYSIWYG, and the same
thing happened regarding fiddling with font and layout: eventually they
wrote everything in "draft" mode and left off font twiddling.

The lesson here: the WRITING is the important work. The features that
have been added to word processors server largely as a distraction to
people who make their living by writing.

That lesson extends easily to other areas of computing as well. Being a
software developer for a good while, I've seen developers concentrate
too much on the latest "gee whiz" features of the IDE or debugger or
framework or Web2.0 or whatever, and less time on coding, algorithms,
etc., even though that's the ONLY place actual work gets done.

Back when Windows was just becoming THE THING, a coder friend of mine
asked me about GUI programming. He complained that though he had read
the books and docs, he was having a lot of trouble getting a working
program in any reasonable amount of time. I'd know him for years, and
knew he was very capable, and very smart, so I knew it wasn't that he
couldn't grasp the concepts. I advised him to figure out his problem and
code it like he always had, and when he had some working code only then
start mucking with UI and window dressing. It worked for him. ;-)

This is not to say that fonts, layout, Web2.0, et al, are not important.
They are very important. But they often serve as a distraction from
actual productivity. It's really good to keep in mind what you're trying
to get done and stay focused on that. You can keep the other stuff in
mind, and that's good. But none of that will do any good if you're not
doing useful work somewhere along the line.

-- 
Darrin Chandler            |  Phoenix BSD User Group  |  MetaBUG
dwchandler at stilyagin.com   |  http://phxbug.org/      |  http://metabug.org/
http://www.stilyagin.com/  |  Daemons in the Desert   |  Global BUG Federation