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I like tools. I like building them, and I like using good ones. I love the feeling of leverage from using my tools together to accomplish in days things that wo

by jitl 9y ago

I like tools. I like building them, and I like using good ones. I love the feeling of leverage from using my tools together to accomplish in days things that would have taken weeks or months without. As a tools author though I struggle to produce things that are both powerful yet also easy to use. I tend to build things that are too “UNIX-y” - and I end up with blank stares from co-workers (users) when I ask them, “did you read the —-help output?” Or likewise when I suggest that perhaps they can wrap tools in bash scripts or aliases and bolt things together...

jacobolus 9y ago
You are working with a broader toolbox than your coworkers. It's like if I ask a carpenter how to attach two boards together and they send me some instructions for making a fancy blind dovetail joint... doesn't do me any good because I don't know the basics or own the necessary basic tools. I would be better off with some nails and a hammer. But that doesn't mean your tool is bad or too 'hard to use'.
Const-me 9y ago
> I struggle to produce things that are both powerful yet also easy to use. The problem is really hard. I can build such tools, but it takes me 2-4 times longer than making an equally powerful tool with rudimentary UX barely enough for me only. Also I’m from Windows world, here “easy to use” == “rich GUI”. Also shell scripts + text streams is rarely a good way to compose stuff here, people are used to APIs/libraries/COM interfaces.
TeMPOraL 9y ago
There are two ways to see this. One is, your tool is too difficult to use to get the 1x value from it. The other is, your coworkers lack the necessary knowledge to extract 10x value from it. I know that stuff shouldn't be complex for complexity's sake, but I also frequently notice an anti-intellectual attitude in our profession. I see people learning just about enough of programming to land a job, and then refusing to learn any further. This is a pretty weird behaviour, IMO, but sadly not uncommon.
shostack 9y ago
I'm a somewhat technical marketer who enjoys building lots of fun tools in spreadsheets for a chunk of what I do. While the raw functionality is often very complex and met with blank stares, I've realized I find new excitement in refining and building pretty "front-ends" in the spreadsheet that simplify things for end-users. Finding interest in the challenges of simplifying and polishing for others is one path forward with your struggle. It was a definite shift as before my focus was on making them as powerful as possible. Only when I realized that the most powerful tool in the world is useless unless people adopt it was I able to break free of my old mental model.
spc476 9y ago
About 20 years ago a friend and I were doing some contract work for a company. I was an undergrad (Comp Sci) and she was a graduate student (also Comp Sci---same college). Our task was to add links to a glossary in about 100 pages of HTML and my friend just started doing it all by hand (well, editing each file one at a time). I had to fight with her to stop and just think about the problem. We were both familiar with Unix, and we were working on a Unix system (SCO, but the company had blown thousands of dollars for the entire SCO works) and I realized we had access to lex. Normally, one uses lex in conjunction with compilers, but it would work for this job---as each word was found, generate the output with a link to the glossary; otherwise just copy the input to the output. Half an hour later we were done with the entire task. I just now realized that there may have been more to the approaches than I realized. I was looking at this very tedious task and not wanting to do it. Why not have the computer do the boring grunt work of finding and editing? But we were being paid hourly and it could have been that my friend was looking forward to doing this very tedious job for hours and making that much more money. I am reminded of the Upton Sinclair quote, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." It could also have been that I think differently and realized the application of a standard Unix tool normally used for one task was appropriate for this task and my friend just couldn't see it. Either could be possible. I have to wonder how much of this is due to "not understanding that the computer can be instructed to do the boring stuff" versus the "I don't want to code myself out of a job."
- jacobolus 9y ago
  Finding and deploying tools you know about (but wouldn't immediately think of) in non-standard ways is a meta-cognitive skill which can be practiced. It's possible you had some relevant past problem-solving experience which your friend did not. It is also possible that you had systematically been socialized to pursue different high-level strategies toward work – I have many friends who were children of working professionals and were taught to value 'working hard' above looking for shortcuts. Aside: It's not only the explicit prospect of hours of work that might have stymied your friend... research suggests that when working for a reward people are typically less creative and less thoughtful than when intrinsically motivated (see Alfie Kohn's book Punished by Rewards).

by jitl 9y ago

jacobolus 9y ago

You are working with a broader toolbox than your coworkers. It's like if I ask a carpenter how to attach two boards together and they send me some instructions for making a fancy blind dovetail joint... doesn't do me any good because I don't know the basics or own the necessary basic tools. I would be better off with some nails and a hammer. But that doesn't mean your tool is bad or too 'hard to use'.

Const-me 9y ago

> I struggle to produce things that are both powerful yet also easy to use. The problem is really hard. I can build such tools, but it takes me 2-4 times longer than making an equally powerful tool with rudimentary UX barely enough for me only. Also I’m from Windows world, here “easy to use” == “rich GUI”. Also shell scripts + text streams is rarely a good way to compose stuff here, people are used to APIs/libraries/COM interfaces.

TeMPOraL 9y ago

There are two ways to see this. One is, your tool is too difficult to use to get the 1x value from it. The other is, your coworkers lack the necessary knowledge to extract 10x value from it. I know that stuff shouldn't be complex for complexity's sake, but I also frequently notice an anti-intellectual attitude in our profession. I see people learning just about enough of programming to land a job, and then refusing to learn any further. This is a pretty weird behaviour, IMO, but sadly not uncommon.

shostack 9y ago

I'm a somewhat technical marketer who enjoys building lots of fun tools in spreadsheets for a chunk of what I do. While the raw functionality is often very complex and met with blank stares, I've realized I find new excitement in refining and building pretty "front-ends" in the spreadsheet that simplify things for end-users. Finding interest in the challenges of simplifying and polishing for others is one path forward with your struggle. It was a definite shift as before my focus was on making them as powerful as possible. Only when I realized that the most powerful tool in the world is useless unless people adopt it was I able to break free of my old mental model.

spc476 9y ago

About 20 years ago a friend and I were doing some contract work for a company. I was an undergrad (Comp Sci) and she was a graduate student (also Comp Sci---same college). Our task was to add links to a glossary in about 100 pages of HTML and my friend just started doing it all by hand (well, editing each file one at a time). I had to fight with her to stop and just think about the problem. We were both familiar with Unix, and we were working on a Unix system (SCO, but the company had blown thousands of dollars for the entire SCO works) and I realized we had access to lex. Normally, one uses lex in conjunction with compilers, but it would work for this job---as each word was found, generate the output with a link to the glossary; otherwise just copy the input to the output. Half an hour later we were done with the entire task. I just now realized that there may have been more to the approaches than I realized. I was looking at this very tedious task and not wanting to do it. Why not have the computer do the boring grunt work of finding and editing? But we were being paid hourly and it could have been that my friend was looking forward to doing this very tedious job for hours and making that much more money. I am reminded of the Upton Sinclair quote, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." It could also have been that I think differently and realized the application of a standard Unix tool normally used for one task was appropriate for this task and my friend just couldn't see it. Either could be possible. I have to wonder how much of this is due to "not understanding that the computer can be instructed to do the boring stuff" versus the "I don't want to code myself out of a job."

jacobolus 9y ago
Finding and deploying tools you know about (but wouldn't immediately think of) in non-standard ways is a meta-cognitive skill which can be practiced. It's possible you had some relevant past problem-solving experience which your friend did not. It is also possible that you had systematically been socialized to pursue different high-level strategies toward work – I have many friends who were children of working professionals and were taught to value 'working hard' above looking for shortcuts. Aside: It's not only the explicit prospect of hours of work that might have stymied your friend... research suggests that when working for a reward people are typically less creative and less thoughtful than when intrinsically motivated (see Alfie Kohn's book Punished by Rewards).