“The app is really clever, but I wouldn’t want to maintain it.” per the developer. We were the 5th team to take it over. We had zero credibility when we started. Of course, my pointing out that the user’s formula had a discontinuity because they dropped the last decimal place at the end helped a lot. I forced the users to decide which version to use.

I trained new people by giving them small projects where they had to do everything, from design to implementation and writing user instructions. One purpose was to set their attitude towards thinking like the person using the software.

My pet peeve was when the programmers neglected little things that made the user’s life easier.