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variagayesterday at 8:19 PM1 replyview on HN

Indeed. Some of the worst software interfaces I've ever dealt with were fully "dogfooded" and that was the cause; the people writing the software did use it every day but (a) in a very idiosyncratic way and (b) in a specific, very constrained environment.

The devs did use the software, but used it in such a different way from everyone else that when the devs optimized for their own case, it made the software actively worse for everyone else.


Replies

noir_lordyesterday at 8:50 PM

Indeed, it's a lesson I learnt the hard way and is much like proofreading something you wrote, you don't see the errors as easily as someone else you asked to proofread it usually does (well until you hit Send then you usually see all of them instantly).