https://hisham.hm/2025/01/14/frustrating-software/
There's software that Just Works, and then there's Frustrating Software.
htop Just Works. LuaRocks is Frustrating Software. I wrote them both.
As a user and an author of Frustrating Software, there's a very particular brand of frustration caused by its awkward workflows.
(cont.)
I recognize it as a user myself when using software by others, and unfortunately I recognize it in my users when they fail to use my software. I know the answer in both cases is "well, the workflow is awkward because reasons". There's always reasons, they're always complicated.
I wonder if I would know that were I not a developer myself.
(cont.)
Well-intentioned awkward free software still beats slick ill-intentioned proprietary software any day of the week. Both cause frustration, but the nature of the frustration is so, so different.
The latter pretends it Just Works, and the frustration is injected for nefarious reasons.
The frustration in the former is an accidental emergent behavior. I feel empathy to that, but it's no less frustrating.
(cont.)
I wonder if non-developer end-users feel the difference, or if the end result is just the same: "this doesn't work".
I've seen people not realizing they were being manipulated by slick ill-intentioned software.
I've seen people dismissing awkward well-intentioned software outright with "this is broken".
If users were looking at a person performing a task in front of them (say, an office clerk) rather than a piece of code, everyone would be able to tell the difference instantly.
(cont.)
@hisham_hm I think if techies and normies were a real distinction, we wouldn't see so many techies on Twitter - they'd all be self-hosting their sites. Being a dev and understanding the hoops doesn't help to avoid jumping through them!
