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List:       cap-talk
Subject:    RE: [cap-talk] YURLs. What is the model of development?
From:       "Stiegler, Marc D" <marc.d.stiegler () hp ! com>
Date:       2005-11-30 16:51:51
Message-ID: BCD023E7727C0A4C93574C4D6C7FE3125B31CC () cacexc12 ! americas ! cpqcorp ! net
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> > Seriously, I think the phrase "most people expect them by
> now" should
> > be replaced by "most people despise this pattern by now, but rage
> > against it in silence." [...] I could understand the reasoning if it
> > was the users of the world that actually liked it, and the 
> programmers
> > were catering to user silliness. But real people hate this stuff.
> 
> Marc, i think i agree with the endpoint of your argument --
> that there is a better way to do authentication that users 
> might eventually come around to liking -- but i frown upon 
> this method of making arguments. The words above appear to 
> speak from a position of extreme arrogance. For example, 
> "real people hate this stuff"?  Who are these "real people", 
> and is it reasonable for any of us to assume we know what 
> they're all thinking?  Is there evidence that users actually 
> harbour "silent rage"?

Well, it is always swell to have a nice formal study, and my use of the
word "rage" was perhaps  over the top. But I stand by the statement
"people despise and hate this stuff."

As I have mentioned several times here, I have had some interesting ways
of accumulating informal information about types of people that don't
show up in laboratories or universities. People who are not close
friends or family, who are more likely to be honest with me. I have
taught community classrooms full of grandmothers learning to surf the
web. And other classrooms full of real estate agents and construction
company owners who just want to get results. I have seen people brought
to tears by the loss of a web browser connection in the middle of a
transaction where they lost all their state (one of the problems that we
claim people "expect"). I have seen them slam their keyboards against
the table. I have seen them stomp screaming out of the room claiming
they will never use a computer again because there was something wrong
with their password typing and they are now locked out. 

This does not even count any friends or family of people who have had
their accounts emptied and their businesses ruined by phishing,
dictionary attack, social attack, and corporate policies allowing the
company to steal your money because they can't stop fraud (as happened
to someone on this very list). Do we need a sociologist from MIT to
print a graph to tell us how they feel?

When people slump down and weep, do I need an EEG hookup to interpret
their feelings? Is it arrogant to think that, when watching someone
pound a fist on the table, I can guess their thoughts though I have only
a bachelors degree in psychology? 

If so, then, yes, I am arrogant. 

If so, then I think our community needs a little more arrogance.

This discussion reminds me of the discussion at AutoDesk 15 ago, when
Windows 3.0 first came out, when the majority of the folks in the
company were certain that "real engineers" (mechanical engineers and
electrical engineers in this case) would not surrender their DOS command
prompt for a silly windowing system. The world's most famous computer
pundits were predicting it would take at least a decade for that
windowing stuff to catch on.

I told them all, as I tell you now, that the case is self evident if you
stop being blinded by the familiar, if you just pay attention to what
your eyes see. I told them that real engineers would leap at the chance
to switch to something that made sense. The AutoDesk people probably
accused me of arrogance too, though not when I was in the room (I was VP
of Engineering, they were reluctant to accuse their boss's boss of
arrogance :-)

Well, when we brought out the world's first professional CAD system for
Windows, AutoDesk saw the first jump in market share they had
experienced in years. Surprise! People leaped at the chance to leave the
familiar behind -- because the familiar was hard to use and easy to
forget and error prone and awful. Does that sound familiar?

--marcs

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