The first one seems like it could be equally well used as an example of not-smart people doing stupid things:
Ignoring the importance of design and style—When the iPod originally came out, technical people complained about its lack of features and perceived high price (“ooh, who cares about another MP3 player, I can go buy one at Best Buy for $50” http://forums.macrumors.com/show...). In the meantime, it was so cool and easy to use that normal people went out in droves to buy it.
Another example is his sneering at old-fashioned non-user-friendly software tools. It sounds like he’s never had the experience of overcoming a really steep learning curve. (And what on Earth does he mean by “programming languages… not updated since the 1970s”? C?)
I agree with this. It’s wrong to ignore the design and style when creating a product, but there’s no rule saying one has to care about it when choosing what to buy.
The first one seems like it could be equally well used as an example of not-smart people doing stupid things:
Another example is his sneering at old-fashioned non-user-friendly software tools. It sounds like he’s never had the experience of overcoming a really steep learning curve. (And what on Earth does he mean by “programming languages… not updated since the 1970s”? C?)
He must be referring to the multitudes of die-hard ALGOL 60 users.
I don’t know about ALGOL, but I’ve known people who still make more than a decent living thanks to their expertise in COBOL or Smalltalk.
Yes… but both of those have evolved significantly since the 1970′s. Smalltalk wasn’t even publicly released until 1980.
I agree with this. It’s wrong to ignore the design and style when creating a product, but there’s no rule saying one has to care about it when choosing what to buy.