Bill Atkinson: Polaroids Showing the Evolution of the Lisa GUI [video]

(www.youtube.com)

145 points zdw | 1 comments | 21 Jun 25 15:13 UTC | HN request time: 0.303s | source

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fidotron ◴[25 Jun 25 11:54 UTC] No.44376229[source]▶

This stuff is why I am so cynical about modern software development management. Bill Atkinson wrote QuickDraw, a masterpiece of low level programming, but also had a very solid grasp about what it was for right down to the UX it was to enable, and as shown here how the UX evolved with user testing. These days the idea someone can span that range is seen as an impossibility.

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2OEH8eoCRo0 ◴[25 Jun 25 19:13 UTC] No.44380889[source]▶

>>44376229 #

Did agile lead to this?

Features are planned in sprints. Add a widget here, remove a widget there. We end up with no design principles or vision, just a Frankenstein monster of junk.

His process sounds a lot like (dare I say) waterfall. Spending a long time in the design phase until you know what you want to build.

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1. Tabular-Iceberg ◴[25 Jun 25 20:23 UTC] No.44381496[source]▶

>>44380889 #

From the video and what I've read at folklore.org it sounds more like what Agile purports to be, writing software in a tight iteration loop, trying things, getting feedback and adapting to the changing needs of the project.

I think where Agile goes wrong is people thinking that you don't need someone who is actually experienced and good at writing software like this (like Atkinson), you can just pick a random individual off the streets who a lot of the time can't even code, and have them take a theoretical course about writing software like this.

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