Frustrations: Devs and their users

Programmers are a lazy lot - let no one lie to you that the colorful T-shirts we wear are for expression of the free, creative spirits that we are. No! Absolutely not! Why on earth would I waste God’s precious time ironing a shirt that doesn’t want to be straight? And the choice of ever creased-can’t-be-reworn formal trousers? I mean who likes being choked by ties when looking for that misplaced “;” that’s had you rewriting full source code? It’s absurd. Our offices have more colors than the rainbow because simple colors seem to inhibit creativity, but to be honest, I think it’s because we can never really decide what it is that we want. We are not all that lazy fam, the amount of swinging that we do on our chairs is sufficient to generate energy to power the coffee machines that always have a sweet intoxicating scent while giving this brew that makes for a fine “developer juice”.

There is a love-hate relationship between developers and users. For the most part, we use our powers skills for good to make life easier by simplifying processes for users. It’s in this world controlled by data and analytics covertly collected from users, that we make our own conclusions and inform product development and direction. This is where we decide that drivers are no longer needed for vehicles to take us to our destinations, that people shouldn’t waste time stretching their legs to go visit that banking hall that has beautiful tellers, that human interaction should be limited at all cost.

Developers essentially have the social skills of a hermit. We burrow into the nitty-gritties of the tech world to present that beautiful outer shell to the users who we view like butterflies. If they don’t like the presentation, we’re toast. We don’t concern ourselves with trivial questions like how applicable is this product or what problem are we solving for user. We conveniently forget the users aren’t hermits like us or as socially inept. We insist on creating solutions using data collected by foreign companies on our soil. There are definitely some things that will be off based on culture and perception but that isn’t our problem.

In order to ensure user data safety we have to effect annoying measures such as two-factor authentication or forcing users to buy unlock codes for phones that are network locked. This where users get frustrated, wondering why they need to prove who they are twice or why they need to pay for unlock codes, didn’t they already pay for the phone though. Feeling as though they’re being dictated to with regards to access to their phone. It is really is for user safety, I promise. Although I must say some of us get a perverse joy wielding even that small pseudo power over users. *Insert evil laugh

Some of the things that we have implemented aren’t particularly useful. This is where we seem petty because we’re honestly just complicating a process the user had no problem with in the first place. We know it, you know and sometimes it’s not even about fixing a problem. It’s the proverbial beating of the chest, just to prove to ourselves and most importantly, other developers, that we can do it. This is how developers strut, hermits or not, with code. This is how we get ‘street cred’, the streets being the internet because God forbid you find us on an actual street walk, strutting. In hindsight, we spend so much time and resources trying to guard our systems from the clever hackers; sadly, it’s mostly the stupid ones that get us.

There’s a reason we don’t leave our contact information on software we create and that’s because we don’t want to hear from you. Once we have created a solution, we want to be done with it. We don’t want to be contacted about extra features or bugs or suggestions. According to us, the software is easy to use because we can use it. We want to keep human interaction as minimal as possible especially because it’s a diplomatic nightmare trying to explain why certain things aren’t possible. This frustrates both the developer and the user because it’s like they’re speaking two different languages. This is why for the sake of peace in the galaxy it’s better for the butterfly and the hermit to remain in their own worlds; never the twain shall meet.