Hacker News Reader

It's all about time. You're writing an open-source project - I know SOME lucky folks get paid to do it, but not most - and you have to just get the damned thing working. Once you do, you have to go back to your job, or whatever else feeds your face. The UX has to wait. And wait. And wait.

View on HN

I don't think this is really the core issue. If you're not getting paid to work on an open source project, chances are you're doing it just because you simply love programming. You probably aren't an expert designer, and, more pertinently, you're probably more than happy with what you have.

In my experience, building a UI makes you blind to its shortcomings. There are methods and procedures around this, but if you just love programming, chances are you don't know them. I found this out myself when I saw my dad struggle to use even a simple chess game I designed. When you've made something, you naturally know it inside-out; nobody else is going to have nearly that much experience with it.

I think it's on a par with clean, well commented code: people with the right experience and know-how can do it as they go without any extra effort; others will need to go back and rework it to get to the same point - and that's time that they probably won't get. I guess I'm trying to be optimistic and say that it can be done, but it requires a certain amount of discipline.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com