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Not a huge Steve Jobs fan, but I had a professor who had worked as a designer under Steve Jobs and tried something similar. Steve insisted that a new mouse need

Not a huge Steve Jobs fan, but I had a professor who had worked as a designer under Steve Jobs and tried something similar. Steve insisted that a new mouse needed to be just a fraction of a millimetre slimmer so a person's palm was lower and closer to the work surface. They figured he was being an unreasonable "delicate genius" and returned a few days later with the identical mouse and claimed they had reworked it to be a little slimmer. He held it and immediately said they had done nothing and the size was identical to before. They took it and reworked it to actually be about half a millimetre slimmer, showed it to him, and he said it was perfect.

masklinn 12y ago
Yes it's a move which works when people demand changes in order to leave their mark or to be seen as "doing something"[0], it doesn't work in the case of people demanding changes because they actually want these changes. [0] an attitude I find myself unthinkingly adopting when doing reviews.
- throwawayaway 12y ago
  i have the guilts reviewing work of non native english speakers and asking them to rename functions after review. hard to ask for it without it seeming completely petty, particularly when everything else is perfect. it does represent a minor improvement.
  - acdha 12y ago
    It definitely requires some tact and thought first. The angle I like to focus on is whether something will actively confuse future maintainers. If it's an internal method and the name is odd but not misleading, it's probably not worth raising at a code review or maybe even privately
    - throwawayaway 12y ago
      yeah it's definitely not one for the rooftops with a megaphone anyway.
      - acdha 12y ago
        This is also a good time for many of us to work on social skills: most people like getting help with a second language as long as it's not putting them on the spot & if you have a good relationship with someone you can bring it up at the right time more along the lines of “Isn't English so absurdly arbitrary?” than something to be defensive about.
        pluma 12y ago
        I think this is being unnecessarily non-confrontational. As long as you explain why the term is wrong or sub-optimal and what it should be called instead, I can't see how any serious programmers should take offence. Consider it this way: natively speaking English means you have domain knowledge, sharing that domain knowledge should feel no different from pointing out mistakes in other domains. If someone gets English wrong, that's no different from getting, say, VAT calculation wrong. Maybe I'm just assuming everyone already handles mistakes in other domains with tact and respect. Also, it's a matter of proportion. If a function name is extremely misleading that's different from a function name just using an awkward synonym, just as a broken piece of code is different from dodgy indentation. You'll want to fix either problem eventually, but the immediate repercussions are quite different (serious bug vs minor annoyance, basically).
        acdha 12y ago
        > As long as you explain why the term is wrong or sub-optimal and what it should be called instead I think we're generally in agreement – I was trying to keep the focus on things which can be reasonably be considered objectively wrong and keeping the degree of wrongness in mind when deciding how to handle it. If you're on the low end of that scale, it's probably not a good use for everyone's time in a code-review session unless it happens a lot.
  - duwease 12y ago
    That's valuable work in my eyes.. a little effort helps a lot when returning to the code (or having someone else use it) later. Bad naming even causes unnecessary confusion once I'm immersed in the code base.. the fifth time or so I have to ask myself "Which one generated the view, 'processAnnotation' or 'handleAnnotation'?", I just spend the time to refactor.
  - jonahx 12y ago
    Naming is incredibly important. I don't think that's petty at all.
  - pluma 12y ago
    As a non-native English speaker, I can tell you that this is not only perfectly acceptable but actually a good thing. Naming is important. Bad function names are a bug in the API, just like any other API bug. Non-native speakers frequently struggle naming things even more than native speakers, especially when they have to deal with a problem domain for the first time. Just like any other mistake, bad function names usually aren't intentional -- often quite the opposite. I remember struggling with naming business domain related functions and variables in the first booking system I worked on, especially because the UI wasn't localized into English, so I had no direct reference. Should this class be called Invoice or Bill? Are the terms "netto" and "brutto" commonly used in English as they are in German? What's the proper plural of "index"? And so on. Having tactful help from a native speaker can be a huge advantage.
  - whyaduck 12y ago
    This problem isn't isolated to non-native English speakers. The potential cost of poorly named methods/variables/classes, etc. is high enough on a complex product that it's almost always worth raising the issue in reviews. If your reviews are run positively it really shouldn't be an issue. As an aside, I recently saw a job listing that included the requirement to be able to "defend your code in reviews" - I would say that's an environment where reviews probably aren't positive experiences.
    - clay_to_n 12y ago
      On the other hand, I could see that as meaning "know what you're talking about so that you can defend the decisions you make." As an intern, I've had many times where I'd say "I did it this way using A B and C, is that the best way? Are there any improvements you'd suggest?" after completing work. But in a more senior position, you probably don't want people second guessing / not really understanding these decisions.
      - whyaduck 12y ago
        I have no problem with anyone, from interns on up, constructively criticizing my code/architecture/design decisions. I work for a company with an exceptionally strong engineering culture and no one shies away from expressing an opinion when invited (and sometimes when not invited). That said, "defend" is a poor choice of words for code review. If someone asks me why I did something, I tell them. It's not a defense, it's an explanation. If they have a better way to do what needs to be done that's GOOD. If we disagree, we discuss why we disagree. Defending is what you do when someone's attacking you, not when you're collaborating.
  - rogerbinns 12y ago
    There are two hard problems in computer science: naming things, cache invalidation and off by one errors.
  - coolguy43 12y ago
    I believe that the best way is to practice english with native speakers. There are now sites like http://preply.com/en/skype/english-native-speakers http://preply.com/en/skype/english-native-speakers that offers tutorials or you can just find a native speaker in person and try to casually converse from time to time.
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ertdfgcb 12y ago
Reminds me of this Koan: Sen no Rikyu, a tea-master, wished to hang a flower basket on a column. he asked a carpenter to help him, directing the man to place it a little higher or lower, to the right or left, until he had found exactly the right spot. "That's the place," said Sen no Rikyu finally. The carpenter, to test the master, marked the spot and then pretended he had forgotten. Was this the place? "Was this the place, perhaps?" the carpenter kept asking, pointing to various places on the column. But so accurate was the tea-master's sense of proportion that it was not until the carpenter reached the identical spot again that its location was approved. from here: http://www.ashidakim.com/zenkoans http://www.ashidakim.com/zenkoans
agarden 12y ago
I think this anecdote might help explain Jobs's success. There is a tendency when one is running or developing a product to convince yourself that your efforts are producing a genuinely good product that your customers will like. Frequently that isn't true, and the product is rightly trashed by the outsiders. The thing is, the people on the inside would have trashed it too if they had not been insiders. Jobs seems to have had the ability to resist this self-deception. He was ruthlessly honest about how good the things Apple was making actually were and not at all afraid to reject things because some aspect was poor.
- LanceH 12y ago
  He really nailed it with the mouse.
  - mhurron 12y ago
    Yep, this thing was beautiful http://cdn.mactrast.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/2012-11-27-puck.png http://cdn.mactrast.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/2012-11-2... Apples design is hit and miss like everyone else.
    - analog31 12y ago
      My carpal tunnels ache just looking at it.
      - graeme 12y ago
        I agree with you. I could never use Apple mice. I hurt my arm muscles typing a few years back. Haven't been able to use them since. (fixed the arm problem with physio and massage) However, the apple trackpad on my macbook air seems to work great. I like this more than even ordinary mice, which can sometimes aggravate the issue.
        yellowapple 12y ago
        I personally swear by Logitech's trackball mice (the ones where the trackball is operated with the thumb); less wrist movement involved, meaning less strain there. In contrast, my wrist hurts just thinking about the Mighty Mouse or whatever it's called.
digi_owl 12y ago
Why did i read that as him getting them to make a mouse that fit his hand comfortably, but wrapped it into a more generic dictate?
sxp 12y ago
There is a similar story about Larry Page when Gmail was being developed: Before Google launched Gmail in 2004, its creator, Paul Buchheit, brought it to Page’s open cubicle office for a review. As Buchheit called the program up on Page’s computer, the boss made a face. “It’s too slow,” Page said. Buchheit disagreed. It was loading just fine, he said. No, Page insisted. It had taken a full 600 milliseconds for the page to load. “You can’t know that,” Buchheit said. But when he got back to his office, he looked up the server logs. It had taken exactly 600 milliseconds for Gmail to load. http://www.businessinsider.com/larry-page-the-untold-story-2014-4#ixzz3TLJzGy9x http://www.businessinsider.com/larry-page-the-untold-story-2... It is quite plausible for people who being to obsess over a certain aspect to become overly sensitive to it. In my case, a lifetime of playing high speed video games makes it possible to notice things that others miss when it comes to things like framerates and microstutter in computer graphics. I find it likely that Jobs and Page were able to pick up on millimeter & millisecond defects.
- aros 12y ago
  How is this story similar? It's not even related to the topic.
- Raphmedia 12y ago
  The thing is, 600 milliseconds is a number that comes up often. You don't have to be precise to the milliseconds, you only have to be able to recognize 100 milliseconds, 500 milliseconds and 1000 milliseconds. The rest is guessing work. It's the same thing with the width of elements on the web. Know what 10px is, and you will be able to guess anything.
  - bilbo0s 12y ago
    Well... I would agree that the Page story is not that impressive. Obviously, most people from the video game generation would be sensitive to a time period greater than 500 milliseconds. But that misses the point of the Jobs story. Some people really do have sensitivity to things that the vast majority of others have trouble perceiving. Most people would have trouble perceiving a millimeter difference in spatial dimension by touch. Having said all of that... the likelihood that the Project Manager in the original story... or even that the Project Manager in your workplace for that matter... is the maven that Steve Jobs was is remote in the extreme.
dchichkov 12y ago
I think there is a more likely, albeight sadder explanation. Steve was simply able to read the faces of the team and correctly guess that they didn't comply. As a compliance professional he was very sensitive to that and immediately reacted.
- Ensorceled 12y ago
  Or, a more likely and less idiotically cynical explanation is that a man famous for having vision, aesthetic sense and incessant drive for excellence that enabled him to completely revolutionize multiple technology industries ACTUALLY had vision and a sense of aesthetics.
  - Dylan16807 12y ago
    Idiotically cynical? You're getting oddly personal over this. A 'sense of aesthetics' doesn't mean you know the objectively right size to fit the very very different hand sizes of a million people down to the sub-millimeter level.
    - Ensorceled 12y ago
      Not at all personal on my side; hell, the story is probably apocryphal. I never said he was right or that I agreed with him, in fact I hate Apple Mice and actually find them too small. No idea where you are even getting that. My point is that Steve Jobs was renowned for an obsessive, manic attention to exactly these kinds of detail and usually knew what he wanted and would blow up when he didn't get it; so it takes a special kind of person to dodge Occam's razor and go looking for some other explanation.
      - Dylan16807 12y ago
        >Not at all personal on my side; hell, the story is probably apocryphal. You called dchichkov's argument "idiotically cynical". That's a personal attack, even if you didn't mean it that way. >I never said he was right or that I agreed with him, in fact I hate Apple Mice and actually find them too small. No idea where you are even getting that. When you say "completely revolutionize multiple technology industries ACTUALLY had vision and a sense of aesthetics" in response to a comment that suggested he was reading expressions, that very heavily implies that Steve was correct. You need to work on wording if you have "no idea" how I got that impression. >a special kind of person This sounds like a personal insult again. I don't know why you're so vehemently against the idea.
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bluedino 12y ago
Didn't Steve email some iPhone project manager at 11:30pm because he noticed the shade of yellow on one of icons changed slightly?
- sukilot 12y ago
  He emailed a Google VP.
sukilot 12y ago
Jobs also insisted on the awful hockey puck mouse because he thought that a perfect circle was more important than ergonomics.
ConceptJunkie 12y ago
Kudos to Steve Jobs for being able to recognize the difference of what he was actually asking for.
driverdan 12y ago
Which is, of course, absolutely ridiculous if true. Not everyone has the same size and shape hands as Jobs did. I hate all of Apple's mice because they're far too small for me.
thro2 12y ago
They should've tried making it wider.
wooger 12y ago
This would be a good story if apple had ever made a mouse that was even passably good.

masklinn 12y ago

Yes it's a move which works when people demand changes in order to leave their mark or to be seen as "doing something"[0], it doesn't work in the case of people demanding changes because they actually want these changes. [0] an attitude I find myself unthinkingly adopting when doing reviews.

throwawayaway 12y ago
i have the guilts reviewing work of non native english speakers and asking them to rename functions after review. hard to ask for it without it seeming completely petty, particularly when everything else is perfect. it does represent a minor improvement.
- acdha 12y ago
  It definitely requires some tact and thought first. The angle I like to focus on is whether something will actively confuse future maintainers. If it's an internal method and the name is odd but not misleading, it's probably not worth raising at a code review or maybe even privately
  - throwawayaway 12y ago
    yeah it's definitely not one for the rooftops with a megaphone anyway.
    - acdha 12y ago
      This is also a good time for many of us to work on social skills: most people like getting help with a second language as long as it's not putting them on the spot & if you have a good relationship with someone you can bring it up at the right time more along the lines of “Isn't English so absurdly arbitrary?” than something to be defensive about.
      - pluma 12y ago
        I think this is being unnecessarily non-confrontational. As long as you explain why the term is wrong or sub-optimal and what it should be called instead, I can't see how any serious programmers should take offence. Consider it this way: natively speaking English means you have domain knowledge, sharing that domain knowledge should feel no different from pointing out mistakes in other domains. If someone gets English wrong, that's no different from getting, say, VAT calculation wrong. Maybe I'm just assuming everyone already handles mistakes in other domains with tact and respect. Also, it's a matter of proportion. If a function name is extremely misleading that's different from a function name just using an awkward synonym, just as a broken piece of code is different from dodgy indentation. You'll want to fix either problem eventually, but the immediate repercussions are quite different (serious bug vs minor annoyance, basically).
        acdha 12y ago
        > As long as you explain why the term is wrong or sub-optimal and what it should be called instead I think we're generally in agreement – I was trying to keep the focus on things which can be reasonably be considered objectively wrong and keeping the degree of wrongness in mind when deciding how to handle it. If you're on the low end of that scale, it's probably not a good use for everyone's time in a code-review session unless it happens a lot.
- duwease 12y ago
  That's valuable work in my eyes.. a little effort helps a lot when returning to the code (or having someone else use it) later. Bad naming even causes unnecessary confusion once I'm immersed in the code base.. the fifth time or so I have to ask myself "Which one generated the view, 'processAnnotation' or 'handleAnnotation'?", I just spend the time to refactor.
- jonahx 12y ago
  Naming is incredibly important. I don't think that's petty at all.
- pluma 12y ago
  As a non-native English speaker, I can tell you that this is not only perfectly acceptable but actually a good thing. Naming is important. Bad function names are a bug in the API, just like any other API bug. Non-native speakers frequently struggle naming things even more than native speakers, especially when they have to deal with a problem domain for the first time. Just like any other mistake, bad function names usually aren't intentional -- often quite the opposite. I remember struggling with naming business domain related functions and variables in the first booking system I worked on, especially because the UI wasn't localized into English, so I had no direct reference. Should this class be called Invoice or Bill? Are the terms "netto" and "brutto" commonly used in English as they are in German? What's the proper plural of "index"? And so on. Having tactful help from a native speaker can be a huge advantage.
- whyaduck 12y ago
  This problem isn't isolated to non-native English speakers. The potential cost of poorly named methods/variables/classes, etc. is high enough on a complex product that it's almost always worth raising the issue in reviews. If your reviews are run positively it really shouldn't be an issue. As an aside, I recently saw a job listing that included the requirement to be able to "defend your code in reviews" - I would say that's an environment where reviews probably aren't positive experiences.
  - clay_to_n 12y ago
    On the other hand, I could see that as meaning "know what you're talking about so that you can defend the decisions you make." As an intern, I've had many times where I'd say "I did it this way using A B and C, is that the best way? Are there any improvements you'd suggest?" after completing work. But in a more senior position, you probably don't want people second guessing / not really understanding these decisions.
    - whyaduck 12y ago
      I have no problem with anyone, from interns on up, constructively criticizing my code/architecture/design decisions. I work for a company with an exceptionally strong engineering culture and no one shies away from expressing an opinion when invited (and sometimes when not invited). That said, "defend" is a poor choice of words for code review. If someone asks me why I did something, I tell them. It's not a defense, it's an explanation. If they have a better way to do what needs to be done that's GOOD. If we disagree, we discuss why we disagree. Defending is what you do when someone's attacking you, not when you're collaborating.
- rogerbinns 12y ago
  There are two hard problems in computer science: naming things, cache invalidation and off by one errors.
- coolguy43 12y ago
  I believe that the best way is to practice english with native speakers. There are now sites like http://preply.com/en/skype/english-native-speakers http://preply.com/en/skype/english-native-speakers that offers tutorials or you can just find a native speaker in person and try to casually converse from time to time.
- deleted 12y ago
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ertdfgcb 12y ago

Reminds me of this Koan: Sen no Rikyu, a tea-master, wished to hang a flower basket on a column. he asked a carpenter to help him, directing the man to place it a little higher or lower, to the right or left, until he had found exactly the right spot. "That's the place," said Sen no Rikyu finally. The carpenter, to test the master, marked the spot and then pretended he had forgotten. Was this the place? "Was this the place, perhaps?" the carpenter kept asking, pointing to various places on the column. But so accurate was the tea-master's sense of proportion that it was not until the carpenter reached the identical spot again that its location was approved. from here: http://www.ashidakim.com/zenkoans http://www.ashidakim.com/zenkoans

agarden 12y ago

I think this anecdote might help explain Jobs's success. There is a tendency when one is running or developing a product to convince yourself that your efforts are producing a genuinely good product that your customers will like. Frequently that isn't true, and the product is rightly trashed by the outsiders. The thing is, the people on the inside would have trashed it too if they had not been insiders. Jobs seems to have had the ability to resist this self-deception. He was ruthlessly honest about how good the things Apple was making actually were and not at all afraid to reject things because some aspect was poor.

LanceH 12y ago
He really nailed it with the mouse.
- mhurron 12y ago
  Yep, this thing was beautiful http://cdn.mactrast.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/2012-11-27-puck.png http://cdn.mactrast.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/2012-11-2... Apples design is hit and miss like everyone else.
  - analog31 12y ago
    My carpal tunnels ache just looking at it.
    - graeme 12y ago
      I agree with you. I could never use Apple mice. I hurt my arm muscles typing a few years back. Haven't been able to use them since. (fixed the arm problem with physio and massage) However, the apple trackpad on my macbook air seems to work great. I like this more than even ordinary mice, which can sometimes aggravate the issue.
      - yellowapple 12y ago
        I personally swear by Logitech's trackball mice (the ones where the trackball is operated with the thumb); less wrist movement involved, meaning less strain there. In contrast, my wrist hurts just thinking about the Mighty Mouse or whatever it's called.

digi_owl 12y ago

Why did i read that as him getting them to make a mouse that fit his hand comfortably, but wrapped it into a more generic dictate?

sxp 12y ago

There is a similar story about Larry Page when Gmail was being developed: Before Google launched Gmail in 2004, its creator, Paul Buchheit, brought it to Page’s open cubicle office for a review. As Buchheit called the program up on Page’s computer, the boss made a face. “It’s too slow,” Page said. Buchheit disagreed. It was loading just fine, he said. No, Page insisted. It had taken a full 600 milliseconds for the page to load. “You can’t know that,” Buchheit said. But when he got back to his office, he looked up the server logs. It had taken exactly 600 milliseconds for Gmail to load. http://www.businessinsider.com/larry-page-the-untold-story-2014-4#ixzz3TLJzGy9x http://www.businessinsider.com/larry-page-the-untold-story-2... It is quite plausible for people who being to obsess over a certain aspect to become overly sensitive to it. In my case, a lifetime of playing high speed video games makes it possible to notice things that others miss when it comes to things like framerates and microstutter in computer graphics. I find it likely that Jobs and Page were able to pick up on millimeter & millisecond defects.

aros 12y ago
How is this story similar? It's not even related to the topic.
Raphmedia 12y ago
The thing is, 600 milliseconds is a number that comes up often. You don't have to be precise to the milliseconds, you only have to be able to recognize 100 milliseconds, 500 milliseconds and 1000 milliseconds. The rest is guessing work. It's the same thing with the width of elements on the web. Know what 10px is, and you will be able to guess anything.
- bilbo0s 12y ago
  Well... I would agree that the Page story is not that impressive. Obviously, most people from the video game generation would be sensitive to a time period greater than 500 milliseconds. But that misses the point of the Jobs story. Some people really do have sensitivity to things that the vast majority of others have trouble perceiving. Most people would have trouble perceiving a millimeter difference in spatial dimension by touch. Having said all of that... the likelihood that the Project Manager in the original story... or even that the Project Manager in your workplace for that matter... is the maven that Steve Jobs was is remote in the extreme.

dchichkov 12y ago

I think there is a more likely, albeight sadder explanation. Steve was simply able to read the faces of the team and correctly guess that they didn't comply. As a compliance professional he was very sensitive to that and immediately reacted.

Ensorceled 12y ago
Or, a more likely and less idiotically cynical explanation is that a man famous for having vision, aesthetic sense and incessant drive for excellence that enabled him to completely revolutionize multiple technology industries ACTUALLY had vision and a sense of aesthetics.
- Dylan16807 12y ago
  Idiotically cynical? You're getting oddly personal over this. A 'sense of aesthetics' doesn't mean you know the objectively right size to fit the very very different hand sizes of a million people down to the sub-millimeter level.
  - Ensorceled 12y ago
    Not at all personal on my side; hell, the story is probably apocryphal. I never said he was right or that I agreed with him, in fact I hate Apple Mice and actually find them too small. No idea where you are even getting that. My point is that Steve Jobs was renowned for an obsessive, manic attention to exactly these kinds of detail and usually knew what he wanted and would blow up when he didn't get it; so it takes a special kind of person to dodge Occam's razor and go looking for some other explanation.
    - Dylan16807 12y ago
      >Not at all personal on my side; hell, the story is probably apocryphal. You called dchichkov's argument "idiotically cynical". That's a personal attack, even if you didn't mean it that way. >I never said he was right or that I agreed with him, in fact I hate Apple Mice and actually find them too small. No idea where you are even getting that. When you say "completely revolutionize multiple technology industries ACTUALLY had vision and a sense of aesthetics" in response to a comment that suggested he was reading expressions, that very heavily implies that Steve was correct. You need to work on wording if you have "no idea" how I got that impression. >a special kind of person This sounds like a personal insult again. I don't know why you're so vehemently against the idea.

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bluedino 12y ago

Didn't Steve email some iPhone project manager at 11:30pm because he noticed the shade of yellow on one of icons changed slightly?

sukilot 12y ago
He emailed a Google VP.

sukilot 12y ago

Jobs also insisted on the awful hockey puck mouse because he thought that a perfect circle was more important than ergonomics.

ConceptJunkie 12y ago

Kudos to Steve Jobs for being able to recognize the difference of what he was actually asking for.

driverdan 12y ago

Which is, of course, absolutely ridiculous if true. Not everyone has the same size and shape hands as Jobs did. I hate all of Apple's mice because they're far too small for me.

thro2 12y ago

They should've tried making it wider.

wooger 12y ago

This would be a good story if apple had ever made a mouse that was even passably good.