Re: Cocoa et al as HCI usability problem
Re: Cocoa et al as HCI usability problem
- Subject: Re: Cocoa et al as HCI usability problem
- From: Peter Duniho <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 21 May 2008 16:37:28 -0700
On May 21, 2008, at 12:27 PM, Sherm Pendley wrote:
On Wed, May 21, 2008 at 1:30 PM, Peter Duniho <email@hidden>
wrote:
My _main_ objection is how newcomers to Mac development are
treated. Please, when someone new to the current Mac development
environment brings up one or more of these points, don't say
"well, you're too inexperienced to see why [Obj-C|Cocoa|the
documentation|the tools] is/are so great".
Why not?
Because it's not an appropriate answer.
When the question is along the lines of "why isn't this exactly
like C++/Java/Whatever," and the person asking it is a newbie, then
the answer probably really is a subtle design decision that's
beyond the newbie's current experience level.
I disagree in several respects. First, you're assuming a question.
That's not always the question being asked. Second, it's a fair
question. Inasmuch as there is an answer, provide the answer rather
than belittling the questioner. Third, making assumptions about what
the questioner can understand is offensive. I have taught C++, C#,
and Java concepts to people who have little to no OOP experience at
all. Presented properly, there is no problem. When they ask "why is
this beneficial to me?" or "why should I bother to learn this?", I
don't tell them "well, just do as I say and in a couple of years
you'll understand". I answer the question. More often than not,
they understand completely.
Don't say "you're riff-raff, it's supposed to be hard, we _like_
that it's keeping you out".
No one has.
Of course they have. I don't see any other way to read this message:
http://lists.apple.com/archives/Cocoa-dev/2008/May/msg01604.html
Shortly after, another poster replied for the sole purpose of
agreeing with the sentiment:
http://lists.apple.com/archives/Cocoa-dev/2008/May/msg01667.html
It's true, the phrase "riff-raff" wasn't actually used. But it's the
essence of what was written.
IMHO, you're being *way* too defensive here, and reading far more
between the lines than the people you're talking to have been
putting there.
I'm not reading between the lines. People are explicitly stating the
opinions I've described.
Don't say "you must not have read the conceptual guides, otherwise
all this would be clear". Or any of the other condescending,
presumptuous things that I've seen said on a semi-regular basis.
When someone is *demonstrating* that they haven't put any real
effort into doing their own research, it's not a presumption.
I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about people like me who
_have_ read all of the conceptual guides and who still run into
problems.
When someone asks questions that *are* clearly answered in the
available docs, it's neither condescending nor presumptuous to
point them to said docs. In fact, it'd be a disservice to them to
offer my own half-baked summary of the docs, rather than point to
the authoritative source.
I'm not talking about "questions that *are* clearly answered in the
available docs". That's the whole point. And I'm not talking about
replies that simply refer to the documentation.
Just because _you_ think the answers are clearly answered in the
available docs, that doesn't mean that they actually are, nor does it
mean that you have any excuse for doing anything more than just
referencing the docs.
Instead, say something like "your complaint is a common one, you
aren't alone, and [most importantly] it's legitimate to have these
concerns", acknowledging that even if someone's concern is
somewhat irrelevant (being regarding a fundamental design aspect
of the language or framework, for example), it does color their
perception and affect how they approach the development environment.
I'm sorry, but I couldn't disagree more strongly. This is a
technical forum, and such places are long on technical detail and
very, very short on warm fuzzies.
But you're wrong. The replies I'm talking about are NOT "long on
technical detail". They are smug and condescending, and at the same
time fail to answer the question that was asked.
If people were only sticking to the technical details, your statement
would make sense. But the moment that people start ascribing to
someone else motivations or failures or anything else that is not
based on a solid technical fact, they have opened the door to
complaints about how a person is treated.
If you want to know the technical reasons for specific design
decisions, you can find that out by asking here. If you want to
have your feelings validated, you'd be better off asking Dr. Phil.
If all people were doing was answering technical questions
technically, that would be fine. But they aren't.
This, I think, may be at or close to the root of your difficulties
here. You're interpreting the highly-technical and somewhat
emotionally cold atmosphere as hostile, and responding to that
perceived hostility. But the people you're talking to are not being
purposefully hostile to you, or to any other newbie, and your
continuous insistence that we must be doing so is getting in the
way of communication.
No. YOUR insistent that people are not doing so is simply consistent
that the community engages in this behavior without being able to
comprehend that they are doing so. I'm quite familiar with the
problem of factual, to-the-point answers being interpreted as being
abrasive, being guilty of those kinds of answers myself. That is not
what I'm talking about.
[...]
This list is about finding help with solving your programming
problems, not about helping you deal with your feelings.
Then don't say things that don't have anything to do with solving my
programming problems. None of the things that I listed as things the
community shouldn't say are things that could be considered
technical, factual conversation. If you truly believe that only
technical, factual conversation ever occurs here, then you have
nothing to say except "no problem! we never do that anyway!"
Conversely, if you see a need to pick apart my motivations and
perceptions, then you are not replying in a technical, factual way
and are thereby disproving the very claim you are trying to make.
Actions speak far louder than words.
[...]
In all honesty, I think that expecting emotional validation from a
technical mailing list isn't terribly realistic. If that kind of
thing is what you need, you'd be better off adopting a puppy.
I very much appreciate you closing with that paragraph. You have
very effectively proven exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about.
Pete
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