Are developers Toast?
Just to be clear on how much I don't like developers here's a question for you.
Why does sliced bread never fit in toasters?
Because designers never use them.
Its the only explanation I can think of, if they used them in the real world with loaves of bread brought from Tesco they would realise that normal sliced bread is 2 or 3 cm longer or deeper than the meager slots they provide.
Developers are much the same, they never seem to test anything in the real world with real users. That is why even nowadays you come across so many applications that assume the user is in the local admins group and can write to the Program Files and Windows directories. If they tested these things properly they would pick these things up and wouldn't need to rely on Admins to fix it so their programs can actually be used.
Web apps are supposed to be the answer to this. They can be run anywhere by anyone. Or can they?
If the use ActiveX then no, we are talking windows only and you need to be an admin to install ActiveX controls. What about Flash based, well you need the plugin and Apple don't like Adobe, but that aside it does work for most part but you will need to be an admin to update Flash 20 or so times a year. DotNET needs a run time installed (the right version as well, don;t try running dotNET 1 app on a dotNET 2 run time) and to be honest has heap of other issues.
Then you get the developer that insists only users using the latest version which needs admin rights to update.
Maybe HTML 5 will fix everything. There's always hope.
Why does sliced bread never fit in toasters?
Because designers never use them.
Its the only explanation I can think of, if they used them in the real world with loaves of bread brought from Tesco they would realise that normal sliced bread is 2 or 3 cm longer or deeper than the meager slots they provide.
Developers are much the same, they never seem to test anything in the real world with real users. That is why even nowadays you come across so many applications that assume the user is in the local admins group and can write to the Program Files and Windows directories. If they tested these things properly they would pick these things up and wouldn't need to rely on Admins to fix it so their programs can actually be used.
Web apps are supposed to be the answer to this. They can be run anywhere by anyone. Or can they?
If the use ActiveX then no, we are talking windows only and you need to be an admin to install ActiveX controls. What about Flash based, well you need the plugin and Apple don't like Adobe, but that aside it does work for most part but you will need to be an admin to update Flash 20 or so times a year. DotNET needs a run time installed (the right version as well, don;t try running dotNET 1 app on a dotNET 2 run time) and to be honest has heap of other issues.
Then you get the developer that insists only users using the latest version which needs admin rights to update.
Maybe HTML 5 will fix everything. There's always hope.
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