Can we stop writing "smart" applications?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3365505
by devmach • 15 years ago
5 9 15 years ago

I have a question to my fellow programmer friends : Can we stop writing "smart" applications ? I'm asking it because obviously we suck at this. Two examples :

Google : Just because i'm in Germany, it doesn't mean you have to redirect me from google.com to google.de and bring me a German page. Yes, there is a link on the right bottom corner ( "Google.com in English" ) but if i type google.com, it means i want to visit google.com, not google.de Believe me, people are not stupid as you think and can type google.de also the google.com => google.de => google.com trip isn't funny.

Gnome's wireless network settings : In Ubuntu / Mint, if you look for wireless networks and click one of them accidentally, you fucked up. You will be asked two times in every 5 minutes about the password of the wireless password. Yes, i made a terrible mistake and i'm an idiot but stop punishing me. And, why did you saved this connection in first place ? There is no reason, I didn't even entered the correct password for this wireless network.

We are trying to make our applications smart by prediction but it doesn't work. So please, stop doing it. Just make a boring configuration process smooth/painless and then go back to your cave, so user get it's things done.

ps : yes i'm a programmer and yes i'm "not" a linux newbee, i know how can i fix this network thing but none of them is what i'm talking about.

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