Re: Uncomplicating IT: Simpler Said Than Done

["Clark C. Evans" <cce@clarkevans.com>]

On Sun, 8 Apr 2001, Michael Champion wrote:
> "Many say vendors don't do as much as they could to make IT products easier
> to use--and purposefully so, as at least one observer sees it. "They're
> designed by engineers conscious of every element of the whole system, and
> they try to show the complexity of the system in the interface they design,"
> says Larry Hawes, a senior analyst at the Delphi Group. "

I like the quote about "trying to show the complexity in the system"
through the interface.  It is easier to justify a high price for
a product if it is deemed complicated.  There is a particular section
in Tom DeMarco's book Why Does Software Cost So Much where Tom discusses
a consluting experience where he was asked to evaluate two
programmers.  One of them has complicated diagrams up on all of his
walls and the manager has come to believe that the stuff he is working
on is _so_ complicated that they couldn't possibly find someone else
to do it.  The other programmer is constantly on schedule, and has
such clean interfaces that the manager concludes that he just didn't
give her really hard work.  Tom explained how the manager believed
the first programmer was "brilliant".  I couldn't stop laughing.
Who knows... mabye the complicated programmer was the brilliant 
one -- I bet he had the higher salary.  *sigh*

Clark