On 1 Mar 2004, at 16:07, Wayne Brandes wrote:
Mr Raymond's views in this essay are as shortsighted as those he's accusing.
He complains that foss programmers have the hubris to assume that the instructions they write are understandable to themselves and therefore must be understandable to everyone else.
It is difficult to disagree with your assessment on this. However, bad documentation, idiotic interfaces and the 'I-(the doc writer)-get-it-so-everyone'll-get-it' syndrome are not the protected domain of FOSS developers.
In fact, I rather expect to observe this more in FOSS non-documentation (I say this sadly, but true) than in the glitzy productions of consumer electronics giants who have large budgets for usability testing and documentation. But these latter get it wrong consistently, too. Something else is at work here.
It might conceivably be that the ability to program, or the ability to doctor, leads to the ability to create clear, well-defined interfaces that are inviting to a broad population of users, but this seems highly unlikely in the face of experience.
Denny Adelman
