DPL Reading List – November 27, 2015
Here are some of the articles we’ve been reading around this office this week.
Nobody Wants Your App (Thanks to Brian Zimmer for recommending this article) – “At this point, I feel confident that although people will always want services that make their lives better — the appeal of that service coming in the form of an app simply isn’t enough.”
The Crowdsourcing Of Software Quality (Thanks to Nathan Wilkinson for recommending this article) – “It’s too easy to ship crap and it’s too easy to update that crap. When I started in software we were lucky to ship every 6 to 9 months. Some places ship every year or two, and others still ship once. I see folks misusing Scrum and using it as an excuse to be sloppy. They’ll add lots of telemetry and use it as an excuse to avoid testing. The excitement and momentum around Unit Testing in the early 2000s has largely taken a back seat to renewed enthusiasm around Continuous Deployment.”
Why Designers Think Users Are Lazy: 3 Human Behaviors (Thanks to Jarrod Wubbels for recommending this article) – “Do you ever think your users are lazy, or maybe even a little bit dumb? Device Inertia, momentum behavior, and selective attention are common behaviors that can make users seem slothful. However, interface design, not deficient user effort, is the true cause for these error-prone user paths.”
Cory Doctorow: The Internet Will Always Suck – “Every time the Internet gets cheaper, or more pervasive, or faster, the applications that it is expected to bear increase in intensity, precarity and importance. As with printers – as with every technology – users and businesses push each innovation to the brink of uselessness, not because they want useless technology, but because something is usually better than nothing.”
Programmers, Let’s Earn The Right To Be Called Engineers – “My husband is a structural engineer. When we talk about work at dinner, I see striking similarities in our days. He builds the structures envisioned by architects; I build the systems envisioned by art directors and editors. We both appreciate aesthetics, but fight for performance and security. And we both manage projects, people, and clients. But if he makes a mistake, people may lose their lives. If I make a mistake, my employer may lose money. That’s not to say I take my job any less seriously than my husband does. But the accountability just isn’t the same, nor are the professional standards. Which makes me wonder what it would take for software engineers to earn the title “engineer” the way civil, mechanical, aerospace and other engineers do.”
Google Exec Tells Brands Their Zeal For Mobile Apps Is All Wrong (Thanks to Jarrod Wubbels for recommending this article) – “On-stage at the the Mobile First Summit in San Francisco, Google’s vice president of performance media Jason Spero said brands have been “too busy” building apps over the past few years. They put up a mediocre mobile-friendly site that then directed people to an app, Spero said. Those brands have woken up in late 2014 and early 2015 to realize that’s maybe not the best way to reach customers.”
Why I Ditched The Business Card (And Why You Should, Too) (Thanks to Brian Zimmer for recommending this article) – “What I want to know is why are we still stuck on this largely unchanged, archaic business tool? I personally don’t have a business card — and haven’t for years. I discovered early on that in the tech industry it’s rare you’ll ever need one. But looking beyond Silicon Valley, I think it’s time we all ditched business cards for good.”
