Hacker News Reader

It's a good ideal but it also helps to recognize the problem. Not everyone that recognizes the problem is apt or interested in offering a solution. Also I don't believe parent comment was intended to be derogatory

View on HN

Indeed. When you do user testing and they tell you a certain component of your application is confusing or hard-to-use, do you castigate them for being derogatory and tell them to fix it?

If not derogatory, I have never found the "This is how ... was done in the 90s/80s/70s" sentiment to contribute much to a conversation.

I understand what you're saying but I think it goes without saying that we've started paying more attention to quality of user experience for software in the past twenty years.

If you genuinely disagree and believe the 90s were as ripe with quality tooling and documentation as 2016, well, that's a bit strange, but you're certainly entitled to your opinion.

I don't know. I really like the moments where Alan Kay appears out of nowhere, tells where your idea squanders the potential of computers, points to 60's-80's prior art that did it better anyway, and disappears in a puff of smoke.

The last thing our discipline needs is us thinking we got it all and it just needs polishing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com