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48 Comments
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Joeslice,
Did you actually read the article? Your analysis isn't exactly insightful. The author makes some excellent points about the nature of IT. IT doesn't exist for the sake of IT, it exists to facillitate business. Too many IT professionals are stuck on their perceived(/supposed) superiority and lose sight of this fact.
I don't think Joeslice did more than skim this article. (I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt.)
Read it, it's worth your time. - tannergdog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3There are some good points in it.
IT folks often fall into the "I must act like I know it all...can't face, looking like .... I don't know" trap, which is complete crap.
But speaking as an engineer... If I have to explain to another tech support person how to logically think through a problem, I'm going to blow an O-ring!! - smitty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I didn't like the article. It was convoluted, unorganized, and made too many generalizations. Or perhaps i'm just not wearing big boy underwear.
/IMHO - joeslice, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I couldn't make it through the first half. Maybe I'm behind on the lingo but I had a hard time placing the comment:
If your answer is something akin to "It's policy, you have to do it or you'll get fired." then I hope you're drinking your Red Bull from a sippy cup, Junior.
If your answer is more like asking the question "Why is it so hard to use?" then you may be ready for big boy underwear.
That's what I was referring to when I said "ramblings". To me, and maybe I'm alone on this one, I can't find why this is something everything in IT should know. In fact, I'm not sure that there's anything I _can_ be sure of about that statement. Perhaps though I should purchase a sippy cup?
Also, this comment:
Why? Because we are smarter than they are. That's why we're in IT.
I'm not sure that there's anyone in IT that doesn't know this, but I would argue that it's not something we _should_ know.
Anyway, hopefully it will help some IT folks. I just found it difficult to read. - deadbaby, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Too many metaphors, not enough substance.
I work in an IT department and the only part of this I understand is "xbox 360" and "red bull" - Bren, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The comments are more insightful than the article. He's arrogant, narrow minded, certainly jaded and though the article substance contradicts, seems to think he knows just about everything. I hope I manage to avoid working with any Mr Manifestos out there. I'll take the sippy cup and wear underwear confortable enough to keep learning at a fervent pace.
- agiletech, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@diskopo: Ironically I think that's his point - as an IT employee you should leave your ego at the door. You're there to ask "How can I help" not "What the hell did you do this time".
- diskopo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1More like, "Because I don't know how to relate with regular people, and have no social skills, that's why I'm in IT". This guy seriously needs to get a grip on his situation. The elitist attitude will get him nowhere.
- l7productions, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Really needs to seperate the points with bold subtitles. Runs all together.
- 3lite, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"That is the way of a Jedi."
I'm insulted by this statement. He shouldn't use honourable Jedis. I don't think his way is one of a Jedi.
;) - alt3r360, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Manifesto? You should change the title to "Things Dratz knows about IT"
See points 3 and 7...
1) Unless you are working for a charitable organization, NEVER work for free. 1 hour work = 1 hour pay.
2) Skill are developed and not awarded. Experience, certification, degrees and especially ACCOMPLISHMENTS constitute your credentials.
3) It is not brain surgery. A willing spirit is usually more important than technical expertise.
4) There MUST ALWAYS BE A SIMPLE AND CLEAR path to core productivity.
5) Never replace a working piece of hardware or software with an inferior product. In other words, if it is not broke do not fix it, in fact, do not even touch it. Upgrades and replacements, must be identical or noticeably superior.
6) Users are not Lusers, they are most likely contributing to the bottom line that pays your salary. Happily accept all abuse except personal.
7) No matter what your position, never use the word "stupid" or "idiot". Treat everyone with respect and do not use condescending terms like "Junior".
8) Never tolerate secrecy as a means to maintain control. The best of the best happily disclose, document and explain.
9) When troubleshooting, never perform more than one complex (or even simple) operation at a time
10) Test, troubleshoot, perfect, test, pilot, perfect, test, roll out (add more testing as needed) - brhad56, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Programmers have to think about users as idiots and make the software idiot proof. Whatever a user can do wrong, they will do wrong. For example, my local Sonic has an interface which allows you to pay for your meal with a credit card, debit card, or sonic card. If you mistakenly press Sonic Card instead of Credit Card, there is no way to back out to select credit card. I know, because i was an idiot and pressed the wrong selection.
- Maynardtwinn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I actually have a button on the program where I work that will make all the computers crash! The IT guys can't tell me why.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Thats a +lame from me too. I'm in IT and the author is an arrogant prick.
- rustymyers, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This article pissed me off...
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This is the first article I've ever voted 'inaccurate.'
Thanks. - Dracos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I had to stop when I got to "Users aren't born stupid, you train them to be that way".
Please. These people were stupid before they got hired. They don't read, they don't listen, they don't pay attention to what they're doing. When was there ever a training seminar entitled "When in Doubt, click OK"? No one was ever instructed how to infest their machine with malware.
People have so many false notions about what computers are supposed to do. If most people treated their car like their computer, they would just sit down in the "driver's" seat and expect the car to know where to go while they watch the trees, apply makeup, talk on the phone, and eat McMuffins. When the car runs out of oil, put tape over the warning light. Low coolant? More tape. When the car finally stops working altogether, complain to mechanic (or family member who knows about cars) and insist "Nothing seemed wrong" when they can see the tape obscuring the entire dashboard. (And the McMuffin wrappers scattered everywhere, mostly in the most illogical places).
Users are naturally stupid, refuse to admit it, and are too stubborn to learn. - h0dg3s, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0
that script has been out for years, this isn't news - thotpoizn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0*yawn* There are some good points in there, but the author is so condescending and self-important - I just can't seem to manage to give a damn. Now, where did I leave my sippy cup and my bottle of Wild Turkey?
- spectre_25gt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0That article has some pretty insightful and interesting comments. The writing could have been a bit more concise, though.
- KoZo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Ohhh im hurt by that article....
- 0Troy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0One of the better articles of a common topic.
(it was like reading a "top 10 ____" post that was actually good)
Digg++ - Xyrx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Good insightful info. Written by a person who's had true experience, not just a book and a certification. From a techy standpoint, sometimes I miss the "small picture" vs the "big picture". Some of those suggestions actually do make sense. +digg
- griffinX, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It's all okay other than the part about policy, i am breaking out the sippy cup 6 pack. i am pretty sure the author has never been the hands on "hardware/OS" IT guy at a large company. If one says "its policy, do it or move on" those words come into play for the "hardware/OS" guy big time every day. The people whom have the right to change the application are behind closed doors/or in a cipher locked building far far away rewriting other projects. They aren't given extra time, or just dont care to deal with finding a way to downsize "too many entry fields" in a data entry point in an old application build, and i am sure others out there whom will agree that larger company IT guys end up managing other things than IT in most situations also (building maintenance, office machines, phones, vendors, vendor relations, scheduling etc;). In my situation anyway there's no time to even begin to have an ego, or want one, anyone with the time to build one just isn't a professional to begin with.
- gbrushtwood, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I'm glad a lot of you are simply dismissing this article based on the author's tone!
This makes me feel secure that I will have some form of employment in IT for quite a while! - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Short of spelling errors, and grammar problems (those are cosmetic, folks, not substantive), this guy made some great points:
Building user interfaces is about as natural for programmers as giving birth is for men. The statement about people asking why users keep clicking that button rather than wondering why that button is there in the first place is far too frequent of an occurrence in my experience.
Most of the points he makes are along the lines of challenging group-think. Take out the IT Department specifics and you can fill in the blanks with almost any other department at any major corporation. People get in a mindset and are unwilling to challenge bad ideas or step back and look at things from a third-party's point of view.
In fact, the point he makes about scope creep I find happens most often *because* a system is designed poorly. The scope creeps because instead of re-evaluating the idea, the solution becomes to pop band-aid after band-aid on top of the problem.
In addition, the point made regarding "Make People Better" ... I find more people that are unwilling to stand up and tell an executive that an idea is bad (with specificity), thinking it'd be dangerous to their job to do so. Unfortunately, when that bad idea ends up costing the company a few million dollars, more than just that person's job is in jeopardy. If you work for people that are so unreasonable that you feel you cannot speak up when you see something is wrong, you probably should start looking for a new job *right away* because there's not going to be much left of the company when those bosses are done burning the place down with bad ideas. - beforeIforget, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I think all the people that posted that they didn't "like" the article or "didn't understand" are showing their relative inexperience in IT. It's just a guess, but I'm gonna say the majority of people on Digg are a bit wet behind the ears in terms of their IT experience... probably less then 5 years or so.
The article is good... the wording could be better and less condescending, but the points are valid. Dugg. - kalisphoenix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0What the hell was that? I didn't understand a damned word of it aside from "sippy cup." This individual works in IT and yet can't make his headings/subheadings distinct? I have a headache now...
- MindsCave, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0he musta had a case of the mundaze...
if you write something dont be condescending to the people that are actually the only ones wanting to read it... - miker71, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"There's a good reason "lakjdlaksdjlaskdjlaskdj" is found in so many databases: users have to type SOMETHING to move on."
I may an IT professional but I am also guilty of using lakjdlaksdjlaskdjlaskdj as my action plan in a database of 2000 servers that needed unique action plans.
"Do good work, on time, and you will be successful. Leave the heroes to the comic books." - a working philosophy of mine for 10+ years, couldn't agree more. You don't have to be the life and soul of the party to be successful. - corkster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Is every second member of digg in the IT sector? Because these boring stories get dugg wayyyy too often.
- dolby, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Thanks I just got a promotion and this information will be helpful.
- djpaulie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0God, I seriously hate the term "technologist" it's like claws on a chalkboard for me.
The article has some good insight though.. Worth the read. +Digg - bondo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"If you dissected most failed IT projects, you would find it to be because the architects and seniors were too stupid or too hard headed to respect the database technology and instead opted for an architecture along the lines of doing a select * from database at startup and then not understanding their locking, referential integrity, and scalability issues"
So most failed IT projects are due to poor database design? I would counter and say most failed IT projects come down to poor planning and estimation, of which a poor database design could be a symptom. I'll bet that there are plenty of failed IT projects that have nicely normalised and finely tuned database, that have gone down the sinkhole because subsequent coding was rushed or sloppy, or because nobody asked the users what they really wanted out of the system. Not that the users ever know anyway. - 4answer2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I'll be waiting for the succinct and concise version.
- chabuhi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I could totally relate to this article back when I was about 23 years old. I remember feeling that way about IT then. But, it wasn't mature insight then and it is not any more mature now. I would be interested to see what the author thinks of his article ten years from now.
- Cyberdactyl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"Is every second member of digg in the IT sector? . . ."
I thought it was obvious. . . - aiiee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I guess if you just came down with the last drop of rain this is news.
lame - freonchill, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0IT lessons are life lessons...
- fohat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I've been in IT about 8 years now, and while this article isn't completely without merit, it wasn't very well written. The thought structures are all over the place making it rather hard to follow, and although the author states in his comments that he supposedly "fixed" some of the formatting, it still sucks.
The number one rule in IT for me is the user comes first. Maybe I should write a manifesto... Now if you'll excuse me, I've got TPS reports to go dream about. - GrahamStw, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Nice article, I enjoyed it and thought it was pretty well written too.
I particularly agree with his points regarding feature creep vs "good enough". I'm often working on fairly low level software, with little room too breathe in terms of memory and cpu, but I still see people introducing far too many layers of abstraction "just in case" we need them at a future date. - soupisgoodfood, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0LOL. Look at all these people dissing the article. These are the exact kind of people that this article is targeting; programmers who think they know what's best.
Also, if you are one of those people who think that users are stupid, I've got news for you: You're a stupid programmer for not being able to design a system that people can easily use. - Rice, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0That SHOULD read, "A technologist's Manifesto."
Learn to write. - demonduck, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0@ billyboob
"Thats a +lame from me too. I'm in IT and the author is an arrogant prick."
I'm guessing that your attempting at irony otherwise you might be in dire need of a reality check. - stoops, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I REALLY want this shirt, ALL of the chicks would digg me SOO much.
http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/frustrations/5aa9/ - perseon, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Whatever.
- Seattelite, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0lame. barely thought out article. sounds like a
- joeslice, on 10/12/2007, -6/+2The title has purpose but the ramblings are mostly pointless. I think it would rock if someone wrote a good article with this title.
Lame
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