Ungrateful End-Users

Have you ever encountered this as a Developer:

Customer Request
I need a report but I want to only input a date range and then it should give me the report with a button click.

Developer Response
OK, ... he is then spending about 2 days to collect the necessary info to get the job done and spends another two days to create the report.

On Delivery:

Customer
Enters the date range and get his report - he is happy and says, job well done, I need another report, but it is urgent, I need it by tomorrow.

Developer
Sorry, it not possible by tomorrow, I need at least 4 days, your project is complex and I need to analyse data again to create the correct results.

Customer then says: Why is it difficult, it is just a date range and a button click!

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Every developer now or then had a similar conversation at least once. End-Users are ungrateful of what they see because they don't know what complex code, formulas, and thinking lays behind the one button click. For them it is just the button click.

This is what I call the "Simple is Bad Syndrome". Just read on and you will get what I mean.

Same with DBA Tools, Database Engines, and Developer Tools; the simpler the tool is the less it is appreciated by the end-user. For example, Firebird is a exceptional good designed SQL engine that outperforms many commercial databases and is very capable of Enterprise Class missions. Compared to Oracle it has only a 40MB footprint where as the smallest Oracle Express is about 1.5GB. Why is that? Both are SQL Engines, both get the job done with almost no performance differences, and firebird has even a few more features to offer.

It is very simple, Larry Ellison understands the "Simple is Bad Syndrome" and that's way a certain bloated engine is designed to overcome that syndrome. (Oracle is complex and difficult to maintain, so it has to be good) An Oracle DBA is one of the highest paid positions and the reason for that is: Oracle is complex and difficult to learn. Firebird on the other side is a Zero-Administration engine, which means a Firebird DBA has less things to do.

People tend to not to appreciate simple working stuff, so if Firebird is simple to use, then it must be no good.

Very wrong, engineers all over the world try to innovate to make life's easier, so simple does not mean not good.

We have created a new SQL Engine called masSQLer, which is in fact the clone of Firebird but with Grid++ integration and with clustering support, and we benchmark it with Oracle. There is almost no difference (both engines have pro's and contra's) except masSQLer is way easier to use and maintain.

The good news is, more and more developers start to understand the "Simple is Bad Syndrome" and realize that life can be easy and appreciate simple and easy to use tools.

For example, we have customers converting to XPower++ from Delphi and Visual Studio, and the most selected reasons in our surveys was, "One-Click compile feature", "It's simple to use", and "It's fast, I get more done". We hope to achieve the same with our masSQLer product.

So if you are a developer my advice to you is: Always try to explain the complexity of the tasks your need to perform (jabber your clients ears full for at least 20 min. with very technical terminology, or until he/she has a please stop expression on his/her face) and have a look at XPower++, will ya, it might save you some time :)

Take good care, its flu season...