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Understanding Software

Understanding Software

By : Max Kanat-Alexander
3.8 (11)
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Understanding Software

Understanding Software

3.8 (11)
By: Max Kanat-Alexander

Overview of this book

In Understanding Software, Max Kanat-Alexander, Technical Lead for Code Health at Google, shows you how to bring simplicity back to computer programming. Max explains to you why programmers suck, and how to suck less as a programmer. There’s just too much complex stuff in the world. Complex stuff can’t be used, and it breaks too easily. Complexity is stupid. Simplicity is smart. Understanding Software covers many areas of programming, from how to write simple code to profound insights into programming, and then how to suck less at what you do! You'll discover the problems with software complexity, the root of its causes, and how to use simplicity to create great software. You'll examine debugging like you've never done before, and how to get a handle on being happy while working in teams. Max brings a selection of carefully crafted essays, thoughts, and advice about working and succeeding in the software industry, from his legendary blog Code Simplicity. Max has crafted forty-three essays which have the power to help you avoid complexity and embrace simplicity, so you can be a happier and more successful developer. Max's technical knowledge, insight, and kindness, has earned him code guru status, and his ideas will inspire you and help refresh your approach to the challenges of being a developer.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
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Free Chapter
1
Table of Contents
2
Understanding Software
3
Credits
4
About the Author
6
Customer Feedback
7
Foreword
15
Index

Chapter 39. "Consistency" Does Not Mean "Uniformity"

In a user interface, similar things should look the same. But different things should look different.

Why did over 75% of Facebook's users think that the May 2009 Facebook UI redesign was bad? Because it made different things look similar to each other. Nobody could tell if they were updating their status or writing on somebody else's wall, because even though the text was slightly different in the box depending on what you were doing, the box itself looked the same. Similarly, the new Chat UI (introduced a few days later) made idle users look basically identical to active users, except for a tiny icon difference. (It's also important that different things are different enough, not just a little different, because people often won't notice little differences.)

This is an easy pitfall for developers to fall into because developers love consistency.

Everything should be based on a single framework...

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