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There is no place for just shitting all over other people's work
- achompas 16y agoThis has to be an age thing. When I was 10 I shitted (shat?) all over people's work. Now that I'm 25 I have nothing but respect for people who produce.
- GBKS 16y agoThere's a middle ground though. You can be very critical and tough and still provide feedback that helps point out weak spots and suggests ways to improve things. Problem is that it's easy to complain, but hard to provide constructive criticism that helps push things forward. So the "shitters" resort to complaining.
- roadnottaken 16y ago"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years." --Mark Twain
- axod 16y agoidk there's nothing more irritating as a creator to be told "oh that's nice". I'd rather everyone tells me it's utter shit than tells me niceties.
- achompas 16y agoThis isn't a black-or-white issue. I can politely criticize your work, or you can crap on my work constructively.
- gaius 16y agoI dunno, I worked with one designer who firmly believed that "users like a challenge". He loved little tricks like "hiding" clickable things by making them blend in with decorative elements, he liked unusual fonts, he liked layouts that forced the users to hunt all over the screen for the next thing they wanted. But we weren't making games, we were making corporate Intranets. So my advice is, ignore your designer and try using something he's designed. If it's easy and intuitive, he's a good designer. If it's not, put him on the silly little scooter he'll invariably have and push him gently out of the door... Especially if he tries to tell you "you don't understand design, maaan"!
- liamk 16y agoIt's easier to critique than to create. For what it's worth, there are many more critics online, which ultimately intensifies the problem.
- steveklabnik 16y ago"when you don't create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. your tastes only narrow & exclude people. so create." - _why
- rgbrgb 16y ago"when you don't critique you just make shit" - me
- steveklabnik 16y agoIt's true, even in the act of creation, there has to be some selection. With that said, if you spend all of your time critiquing, you never end up building anything. It's all in the balance... There's also a difference between "I'm working on critique to improve my craft" and "I make a blog specifically designed to talk shit on people." You can critique in a few ways, some more abrasive than others.
- jarek 16y agoNot all people who create can critique, especially their own creations.
- wccrawford 16y agoCriticism is good for a creator. If you can't turn criticism into a force to improve your product, you're doing it wrong. (Granted, baseless criticism doesn't count.) And if they're violating Apple's HIG... Seriously, why? That should be the easiest thing to get right. They've outlined it for you.
- jasonlotito 16y agoApple's HIG isn't the end of UI design though. Even Apple refuses to blindly follow it. It's a guideline. Not hard and fast rules that must be followed in all cases.
- DougBTX 16y agoTechnically the AppStore guidelines say that Apps must follow the HIG, and that not doing so is grounds for rejection. In practice however, I think you're right since I've not heard of someone actually being rejected because of that.
- chc 16y agoThere's a truism in many fields, "You have to learn the rules before you can break them." It means that rules are not the end-all-be-all, but they exist for a reason, and breaking them is generally bad unless you have a very good reason. When you're just copying an iOS interface to the Mac, to use an example from that site, that isn't intelligently deciding that you can do one better than the HIG. That's just pointlessly making the app less intuitive.
- cubicle67 16y agothere's a world of difference though, between criticism and just being nasty this is not a site for criticism, it's failblog for iOS apps; somewhere for people to gather, point and laugh and some poor sod.
- jsdalton 16y agoI agree that just shitting all over people's work is, well, shitty. But I disagree entirely that the anonymous critic behind Read the Fucking HIG (http://readthefuckinghig.tumblr.com/ http://readthefuckinghig.tumblr.com/) is out of line or that this kind of criticism is lacking in merit. Firstly, it's clearly a bit tongue in cheek: "The evil doctor cackled as the thunder struck his lightning rod, giving life and sentience to his unholy creation, spliced together from iphone, ipad and mac ui." And the vulgarity is right in line with other satirical, single purpose sites like http://www.whatthefuckshouldimakefordinner.com/ http://www.whatthefuckshouldimakefordinner.com/ and others I can't think of right now. Secondly, he's got a "legitimate" complaint. You don't have to agree with his point, but I think a lot of people who are passionate about design (and about design in the context of their Mac) really, really do experience visceral rage at the way Apple flouts the HIG. A site like this is really just capturing that zeitgeist and reflecting how heated people actually feel about the topic. Anyhow, I really am a big proponent for civility in discourse (that's why I'm always reading HN), but everything has its place.
- jzimdars 16y agoHe may be right. But he's not adding any value for anyone the way he points it out. I think the biggest problem I have with it is that he's insulting and attacking the people who made these apps. There is no reason for that.
- roc 16y ago> "But he's not adding any value for anyone the way he points it out." It's a curious community we have. Pointing out problems or reporting visceral reaction is considered not constructive. Yet speculative re-designs to illustrate what the critic might have done differently are also considered not constructive. It seems to me that when nothing short of actually competing against a product is considered useful or valid, the real argument is that criticism shouldn't exist and isn't useful in and of itself.
- rick_2047 16y agoIf you think about it carefully the emphasis here is not on if he should complain or not, the emphasis is on the way he should complain.
- hvs 16y agoI agree, and will also point out that the referenced site (http://readthefuckinghig.tumblr.com/ http://readthefuckinghig.tumblr.com/) is terrible, IMO. Does the holier-than-thou author not know how to use the fucking shift key?
- rgbrgb 16y agoAlthough the tone is perhaps a bit mean-spirited (kind of funny), I have to say that I agree with most of the points readthefuckinghig makes. Critique is important, not immature. Despite the fact that the blogger in question comes off as a real asshole, he makes real observations about specific details which wouldn't have been so ugly if the designer had just read the human interface guidelines. If something sucks, I think it's better for someone to say it sucks anonymously than for nobody to say anything - especially if they're citing details that can be fixed!
- sabat 16y agoI rarely enjoy 37 Signals posts, but I heartily agree with Jason Z. (new guy?). There's so much negativism on the net in general; everyone seems threatened by everyone else. And you find it here, too, a place where you'd expect to find nothing but support and encouragement. (To be fair: HN is full of supportive people; there's just more negativity than you'd expect. I'm probably guilty of that, too, although I'm making a concerted effort to do otherwise.) All criticism is not constructive criticism. If someone's trying, they ought to be encouraged to keep trying. That may sound naive and pollyanna, but ask yourself: when was the latest time a hater changed the world for the better?
- axod 16y agoFWIW, I think parents/friends give blind support and encouragment. HN/peers/tech community should give complete honesty. If that means saying "That idea is terrible" so be it.
- davidw 16y agoComplete honesty can be simple, direct, and if not exactly nice to hear, certainly not mean-spirited in tone. That's quite different from the style of "oh my god what a bunch of fucking idiots these guys are, ha ha ha". It's a cheap, easy way to get some laughs (see: Ted Dziuba) but I'm not really a fan.
- axod 16y agosure, but if you're making money and having fun, other peoples opinion shouldn't really matter. It seems to be popular at the moment to laugh at Justin Beiber online and say how much you hate him. But he's the one making millions out of teenage girls...
- alex_c 16y agoI agree, but there's a big difference between honest, polite feedback and negativity, meanness, or just good old-fashioned flaming. HN is pretty good in this respect. Reddit is still decent, though it can definitely lean towards mean. YouTube / app store reviews... forget any chance of respect.
- jarin 16y agoWhile I agree with the sentiment, I think sites like Read the Fucking HIG serve a good purpose: they keep UI designers from getting lazy. Nobody wants to come up with a design that ends up on a site like that.
- danilocampos 16y ago37signals is at their worst when they adopt this sanctimonious attitude. Say what you want about their juvenile tone, the criticisms on RTFHIG are mostly valid. What are we going to do next? Pillory literary, film and food critics because their insights are inconvenient to the sensitive feelings of creators in those realms? Come on. Creating things for other people has a long, rich history of criticism. Some valid, some bullshit, but all essential to the advancement of whatever creative field is under scrutiny. The shovelware artists who RTFHIG pick on might find a genuine direction for improving their work. Meanwhile, we're all talking about what genuinely makes a good interface. That these guys are provocative makes their insights more valuable, since they get more attention. If you don't have or can't grow a thick skin, you don't belong in a creative field. It's as simple as that.
- msbarnett 16y agoWe do pillory film, literary and food critics who are caught basing their review on a publicity still of the work in question. It is not unreasonable to expect a critic to watch/read/eat/use the film/book/food/UI in question before calling its creator a "fucking hack".
- bradleyland 16y agoI need not take a bit of a cow pie to tell you that it will taste like shit. I can tell from where I'm sitting.
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- alexgartrell 16y agoIt's a cute metaphor, but what would you think of eating a lobster from looking at one? If you're going to be the authority on the taste of cow shit (shit tastes like shit is, of course, a tautology), you better eat some cow shit.
- jakeg 16y ago“Where the heck were you when the page was blank?” - Paul Butterworth Always such a bogus argument. This is what people say when they don't like your opinion but have no argument to counter, so they resort to a rhetorical that implies you have no authority on the issue. But the fact is you do not need to be a creator to criticize a creation legitimately. Sometimes specializing in just observation/criticism and not creation allows you more time to think things over from the standpoint of analysis, whereas creation demands that a large portion of your mental energy goes to the creation process. I can't speak to the blog in question but there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the idea of a blog just for the sake of criticism. How it goes about that criticism and any unnecessary hostility is another issue.
- jasonlotito 16y ago> . How it goes about that criticism and any unnecessary hostility is another issue. No, that's the issue. Dismissing that invalidates your entire comment.
- jakeg 16y agoI was responding to the bottom half of the article which makes the argument I referenced separately.
- jasonlotito 16y agoThen if you were, your second paragraph doesn't make any sense at all, and frankly, is pointless.
- msbarnett 16y ago> Sometimes specializing in just observation/criticism and not creation allows you more time to think things over from the standpoint of analysis, whereas creation demands that a large portion of your mental energy goes to the creation process. This sounds suspiciously like saying that you're an "ideas man". The reality is that the barrier to creation is so low in the digital world that if you are criticizing without bothering to learn how to create, I have a hard time telling you apart from the guys who would generously let me do all the work on their idea for 5% of the profit. If you have opinions on good design, put them into practice; don't just stand on the sidelines cursing at everyone who is trying.
- gyardley 16y ago'Read the Fucking HIG' (and 'Perversion Tracker', two years ago - http://www.perversiontracker.com http://www.perversiontracker.com) is interesting not so much for the content of the criticism, but because it's a reaction to the massive influx of new developers into a development community with its own distinct subculture. Mac developers for the longest time engaged in 'artisanal software production' (for lack of a better term) with high production values - and while a few did well, many of them were just scraping by, doing it largely out of love for the platform. Then iOS came out, everybody learned Objective-C, money began to flow freely, and like homeowners in a town that's suddenly become touristy, they found themselves economically better off but a little ill-at-ease with the new character of their neighborhood. Because of this, I'm more inclined to give this guy a bit of slack. The criticism isn't personal - it's just one person's way of mourning a world that no longer exists.
- kentosi 16y agoYou've posted perhaps one of the better definitions of this guy's attitude, and I have to agree. However, while he's criticising UI design flaws, he doesn't actually provide any real ideas/examples on how they should fix this. This might just be because he can't afford the time to do so. Ironically, this is probably also the main reason why all these bad designs exist.
- bane 16y agoI think what rubs me the wrong way about this site is not the criticism. Criticism is ok. It's lack of proposed solutions. One thing I really enjoy is when designers take a look at some established interface and try and design a better one and put it out there for comments and ideas. That is constructive criticism in my book. example:http://www.flickr.com/photos/zachklein/4831151379/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/zachklein/4831151379/
- lovskogen 16y agoI think the proposed solution to all entries would be "Do it with the HIG in mind".
- bane 16y agoYes, I think I get that, but if everything was done to HIG all apps would look the same (much like all writing conforming to Formal English reads the same). I think what I'm asking is this, what can they do to conform to good GUI guidelines (HIG compliance doesn't necessarily answer that mail) and still maintain a unique looking interface? Also, in many cases, the developer may not know what's wrong with their interface or why it doesn't comply with HIG. Non-constructive criticism like this (while funny on some level) isn't exactly pushing humanity forward, it's just bitching.
- lovskogen 16y agoThese apps are so far from the HIG that pushing this out would make the creators read the HIG, hopefully sucking in some of it.
- dev_jim 16y agoMost of the apps reviewed are beyond salvaging. At least the Delta site had a decent base to work off of.
- dev_jim 16y agoMac users care very much about design and aesthetics. I would turn this around: These developers are shitting on the platform. And sure, I will just not download that app, but these developers should be ashamed for realeasing something so ugly. Do they have no pride in their work?
- jessevondoom 16y agoI think it's an important point that constructive criticism has a positive intent and it's rarely mean-spirited. Might be hard to hear, but the critic isn't just being an asshole. (Did have an art-school teacher who used mean similes to teach, but that was the rare exception. And he had a consistent flair for mean, so it was sort of an odd joy to behold.)
- mixmax 16y agoI generally only listen to criticism from people that have accomplished something similar to what they are criticising themselves. There are so many negative people out there, and it's a good way to sort the wheat from the chaff. People who have been there themselves tend to only complain if there's a valid reason for doing so.
- frankc 16y agoI see this a number of posts here arguing for/agaist this with an unsaid dichotomy where the choices are 1) don't critisize, create instead 2) Criticism is good, even if is kind of mean. But I think this a false dichotomy. Words and tone do matter. If you put the object of your criticism in a defensive position, you are unlikely to effect any change at all. This is not some new insight; it's been well understood at the very least since Dale Carnegie. You might acheive the goal of making yourself feel good, but then that certainly isn't worthy of any external respect. What's the difference between: 1) You app is ugly and it fucking sucks. If you used abc to do xyz, at least I wouldn't be vomitting. and 2)Nice effort on your app. You might consider using abc to do xyz. It might improve the aesthetics and usability some. Some might say it says effectively the same thing, but the there is a world of difference in the way the reader reacts to those statements.
- othello 16y agoThe irony being of course that the critics themselves should start by reading a f*ing English grammar book and learn to capitalize the beginning of their sentences.
- jonhendry 16y agoEh, it's like Regretsy, the site that makes fun of atrocious items placed for sale on Etsy. Even Regretsy has wound up boosting sales of the mocked items. They've also harnessed their traffic for good with occasional charity appeals, and helped a little boy with cancer raise $100,000 or so to pay for his treatment.
- stephth 16y agoYes! And praising the stuff you love is so much more constructive than flaming the stuff you hate. Hurray to the lovers!
- rmorrison 16y ago"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." - Theodore Roosevelt, April 23, 1910
- timruffles 16y agoCriticism isn't often worth anything, just demonstrating a sterile person trying to find other things to do than make. Until we see some world class design from the anon behind FTFHIG, their opinion is worth 0. Alexander Pope's Essay on Criticism - 'Let such teach others who themselves excel, And censure freely who have written well; Authors are partial to their wit, 'tis true, But are not Critics to their judgment too?'
- reason 16y agoI just read through 10 or so posts on that blog, and nothing seems terribly out of line... His criticisms were for the most part legitimate. That's just his style, and, while I don't prefer that and think it's quite immature, I've got to say, I did agree with most of the things he pointed out. Amusing how you're calling for respect of other's work when you've shown to not give a shit yourselves and put an end to the work of a competing service that many seemed to enjoy temporarily -- HuddleChat.
- tedjdziuba 16y agoOf course there is. It's called trolling, and it gets attention. For example, the modern news media is built on trolling, as is most of 37signals's fame.
- runjake 16y ago1.) The referenced is taking a somewhat tongue-in-cheek approach to advocating the Apple HIG. 2.) I find 37s posting something like this humorous. DHH "shits all over" other people's work all the time. In summary, lighten up.
- civilian 16y ago>> Looking at the end product it’s impossible to know the journey that the designer took, to appreciate what went into it. You don’t know about the constraints, the compromises, or external forces that shaped the design before you. Certainly the end user is not going to be privy to those details either, but as a designer critquing the work of another designer you should know there is more to it. I would really like it if designers would be more open with their constraints. If the customers understand the constraints, then we can give better feedback about how to make a better product.
- Tycho 16y agoI don't know if I trust any authority on the Internet when it comes to judging interface design. Even some esteemed bloggers/authors in the web-design field, I've found their personal home pages to be a bit dull. See also: the apparent outcry over the Mac App Store interface. When I finally used the thing myself, I was highly impressed and I suspect the non-geek portion of the population have no problem with it whatsoever.
- raganwald 16y agoDon’t try to win over haters. You’re not the Jackass Whisperer. --Scott Stratten
- nhangen 16y agoSays the same guy who's frequently quoted as saying "you're doing it wrong!"
- raganwald 16y agoWhich guy is frequently quoted as saying that? I'm bewildered. Also, is that an Ad Hominem? If the quoted line is incorrect, it should be possible to refute it directly without discussing the speaker's credentials or other sayings.
- nhangen 16y agoScott says it all the time when making fun of the way people use social media. That being said, you are correct, haters hate. No use trying to convince them to stop.
- blasdel 16y agohttp://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Scott+Stratten%22+%22doing+it+wrong%22 http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Scott+Stratten%2... The speaker's statement hinges on not being the kind of person that uses those other sayings. I suppose he could take the position that he himself is a professional "Jackass Whisperer" and that you should not aspire to become the same, though that puts the listener in the awkward position of being the aforementioned jackass.
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- raganwald 16y agoHeh! I wrote out four paragraphs responding to your comment, but then I realized that since I like the saying so much, I ought to take its advice. Carry on without me.
- BlazingFrog 16y agoAs a basketball player, I'd gladly take any (any, really) critique from Kobe. I won't take any (any, really) shit from Joe Blow. Prove to me you can do better than me. Then, we'll talk.
- davidedicillo 16y agoI'm actually surprise by how many people are defending the author of RTFHIG. As a designer I can tell you can most of the users of HN could end up on a site like that with their app (web or native). Those people that he's picking on could be developers who build those app for the love of programming and make some extra cash, and they may genuinely thinking those are good UIs.
- huertanix 16y agoGood. This is why I hate asking my nice friends what they think of my web app design. They always say it looks good. I want to raise the bar to epic, and the only way to do that is to stop asking for preschool-era "everybody wins" criticism and start asking for Chef Ramsey servings of brutally honest opinion.
- twir 16y agoI think it's the principle of the thing. Criticism works when done right, that is when it's traditional criticism like we all learned in art class. "Your shading is inconsistent here, and the use of lilac is cliche." Contrasting, this blog 37signals is going on about just smacks of the zeitgeist that is modern "criticism": Nowadays, criticism is rarely substantiated. Instead, folk spout out inflammatory nonsense like "it's a flaming load of dog crap" rather than the much more helpful "a combo box was a bad choice here." To the critics: make it constructively funny. If you're just going to badmouth me then put up or shut up you non-contributing zero.
- gregpilling 16y agoDid anyone else notice that the Apple Human Interface Guide is hard to read on a widescreen monitor? I clicked on the link and the text was a good 18" wide. You would think they would know about making a website readable. http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/XHIGIntro/XHIGIntro.html http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/UserEx...
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- dedward 16y agoI've always found the mac software space to automatically weed out bad UI. The userbase is used to certain behaviours (as generally described in the UI guidelines from apple)- and apps that don't follow that tend to not gain much traction. Sure, the app store will expose a bunch of crappy apps from people who don't read the guide - but the market should weed them out in a hurry - those who develop according to what the market expects will succeed over those who write junk.
- haecib 16y ago37signals really missed the point. Are they seriously calling them out for not offering more constructive criticism? Um...that's not why that site exists... On a side note, there is nothing stopping 37signals from creating a webspace dedicated to constructively critiquing Mac App design for the benefit of the community in a more thorough and serious manner. But somehow, like the creators of the site, I doubt 37signals is interested in doing so. :|
- molecule 16y agoThere are many places, and one is right here: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1351-1-who-the-fuck-designs-this-shit-and-2 http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1351-1-who-the-fuck-designs-t...
- statictype 16y agoOuch. But now I wonder, do individual blog posts in SvN reflect the overall opinion of 37signals or just the person who wrote the post? Keep in mind that the author of this post and the submitted one we're discussing now are different.
- emilepetrone 16y agoAmen
- iuguy 16y agoIs it me or is RTFHIG actually generating discussion, adding value and generally making sense? What is it that 37signals are doing in this post again? Oh, I'm sorry, trying to engage in a urinal measurement comparison. There seems to be a thing amongst blogs and indeed writers. They reach a certian level in which they comment on things that affect them, then they comment on things that don't affect them, then they seem to adopt a particular stance that seems controversial to us, but not to them, because thus far we have celebrated them - they have become celebrities. I've seen this with Guber, I've seen this with 37 signals. Perhaps one day this will happen to me (hopefully I'll never become important enough). From that point on the shark is never far away from jumping. I don't think 37 signals jumped the shark here, but I do think they went too far. They're right, there is no place for just shitting all over other people's work. Shame they forgot their perspective on who was doing the shitting.
- dools 16y agoThere are a few things I'd like to throw in here: 1 is that I didn't even know what the fucking HIG was so I had to look it up and, hell, thanks to that website, if I ever choose to put an App on the Apple App store (highly unlikely), I will probably look up the HIG, and read it. Thankyou. Secondly this post by 37 signals is inspired by RTFH but the headline is "There is no place for just shitting all over other people's work" - and that's a true statement. This is something that is particularly rife in amongst programmers: they point at each other and say "what? you don't use X and do X? then you are a shit programmer". Life is about getting things done and getting things done necessitates compromise. You should see how shit the videos I just made for my product are. They're totally shit, but it's the best I could do and I wanted to put something up there. I didn't have the money to pay a professional or the time to learn to do it better - there you go. Whilst I was doing it my own internal monologue kept saying "This looks like the investor pitch video for Prestige Worldwide" (if you don't get that reference, it's from the film "Step Brothers"). If someone posted my videos on a website called "makeyourfuckingvideosgood.tumblr.com" I wouldn't necessarily be offended because it would generate traffic to my site and I know my limitations and have no sense of pride in what I've created, but that doesn't make it right for someone to wantonly create zero value assertions about the quality of others' work (let me say, though, that I would say that humour adds value so Maddox's "I am better than your kids" is exempt). Now lastly, I find it somewhat ironic that 37signals have posted all this shitting on the person's work who writes RTFH. Perhaps they could have included some constructive criticism on how to improve their writing, or posted alternative examples of satire they enjoy more. Perhaps the most appropriate response would have been to create readsomefuckingsatire.tumblr.com and put that site on it. As professionals we should all be continually learning and improving, and we should never disparage someone who has not learned or improved as much as us in a given field because, as the OP points out: they're making something and that's awesome. That's the key point I took out of this post, and it's an attitude I'm going to work harder to cultivate in my own life.
- rlmw 16y agoIt is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trsorbonnespeech.html http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trsorbonnespeech.html
- redstripe 16y agoA little off topic, but I had no idea there were so many bad apple apps. Some of it looks like the crap that comes on my motherboard driver CD. If anything, this is a sign of the mainstreaming of apple. No longer is it an exclusive refuge of self styled artists... the barbarians are at the gates. This probably wasn't how things were supposed to turn out.
- brm 16y agoFrom the comments there... DHH shitting on the app store http://bigthink.com/ideas/21603 http://bigthink.com/ideas/21603
- d_r 16y agoFunny enough, if 37signals have never written this post criticizing RTFHIG, I would have never heard of RTFHIG. Kudos to 37signals.
- JoeAltmaier 16y agoPrecious fusspot
- tedroden 16y agoIt appears that they just took my post from last week and added 500 words: http://ted-is-a-nerd.tumblr.com/post/2631616173/ http://ted-is-a-nerd.tumblr.com/post/2631616173/
- jdietrich 16y agoI'm going to have to disagree. Apple make it incredibly easy to make apps which fit with the look, feel and experience of the rest of OS X. The Human Interface Guidelines are clear and specific on how to do most things. Cocoa's APIs and the Interface Builder make it far easier to follow the conventions than to reinvent the wheel. There is absolutely a right way and a wrong way to implement most UI features in Mac software. The criticisms in RTFHIG aren't simply that the apps featured are ugly, but that they do things that Apple explicitly states that you shouldn't do in a Mac app. Doing it the right way requires nothing more than the willingness to read and follow the explicit instructions given in the HIGs. I have absolutely no respect for anyone who has so little respect for software. Writing software is unquestionably difficult, there is a great deal to learn and most developers have a long adolescence before they start writing really good software. It's also true however that the proliferation of bad software has serious negative externalities on the developer community. It feels absolutely terrible to submit a lovingly-crafted piece of software to an app store only to see it swamped by thoughtless, careless crapware. We would be foolish to ignore the importance of signal-to-noise and the ability of noise to render a communications channel useless. For people who make their living through the app store, this is absolutely a matter of survival.