Development is weird.
To users, the interface and/or experience is the application. But, like any true piece of engineering, there are a lot of moving pieces going on behind the scenes.
I’ve been developing professionally long enough to know that people take advantage of this dynamic – if the application looks good, who cares about the code?
But this mentality, although not necessarily detrimental to our users, is detrimental to us.
We’ve all been delegated tasks for which we’re responsible. We’re to focus, pursue, and perform to the best of our abilities. Unfortunately, quality is one of those things that’s easy to skirt our field.
I know – this sounds a little cliche – but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true, and I’d much rather be able to confirm to someone that what they see on the screen truly reflects the quality of what they can’t see.
Naturally, I don’t know what this looks like in your world: Perhaps it’s something as simple as writing bad markup, or maybe it’s a lackluster job of rotoscoping, or maybe you’re doing a less-than-stellar job of maintaining high levels of cohesion with your objects.
But I know that the common denominator is this: There is a level of work that is done that general users will never see and in that lies the challenge and opportunity to be responsible with what we’ve been tasked. Sure, it’s a struggle, especially when it appears as if no one will notice that lack of responsibility we’ve taken with our work.
But we know that’s not really the case.
Ultimately, I know that we’d all rather be told that we did exactly what was expected of us, so maybe next time we’re tempted to sacrifice quality for what most others won’t even see, we gotta remember that someone’s gonna see it.
And it does matter, right?
[Image from haydnseek]
Brian says
Constantly rebuking this web devil.
Tom says
Yup
d3ft punk says
I spent a marathon 12-hour session working on a website for my church. Took them out of the dark ages, and moved them into the 20th century (this was in 2008). I set up GAFYD, gave them all the technology keys, and showed them how to really make the thing cook. Share documents, collaborate proactively, it was an awesome setup.
The two bits of feedback were: (1) the website was too brown; and (2) how do you get the church emails to forward to Yahoo! mail. Needless to say, they are still emailing each other incompatible versions of Word documents that make stunningly bad bulletins, nobody ever checks their church email, and the website could be full of pr0n for as much attention as they pay to it.
But it is awesome. Awesome-like, anyway.
Tom says
I’ve had to learn certain, um, techniques as I’ve built applications for people.
First, they rarely know what they really want – so I’ll build out exactly what they’ve spec’d and then just wait for the “wait, what I’d rather have is…” I also do the most barebones functionality possible. Otherwise, there’s too much to roll back and I end up in marathon sessions.
Secondly, I don’t move forward until they’ve literally signed off on the most recent iteration. Yeah – it takes a while to get through an entire project this way, but it takes time and stress.
Finally, not everyone wants to know a better or easier way to streamline their workflow. If that’s the case, then let ’em continue to email Word 97 through Yahoo! and AOL email ;).
Stephen Bateman says
I mean in development, the toughest thing you do will probably not be the sexiest part. But it’s still gotta be done eh?
Brian says
Stay sexy developers, stay sexy.
Tom says
I’m trying by my coffee breath is getting in my way.
Tom says
..see? It even prevents me from using correct grammar. “I’m trying but but my coffee breath is getting in my way.”
Tom says
True sexiness lies within so, you know, … 😉
PhillipGibb says
word. in my job- I am the developer for what happens behind the scenes, hmmmm
Tom says
Cool – team lead or do you fly solo?
Daniel says
“lthough not necessarily detrimental to our users, is detrimental to us.”
It may not be detrimental to the users on the first iteration of the product, but if your code isn’t maintainable, the users will notice when new features are duct taped on and don’t jive with the rest of the system well.
Tom says
Exactly.