Joel on Software

2001/05/28

I've been watching videos from Reboot, a web conference in Denmark. Mark Hurst tells some interesting stories about usability lessons from the web. My favorite: when your checkout screen prompts for a username and password, some newbie users will type in their AOL username and password. Why? They're not reading the text that says "returning customers, type your username and password." More proof that people don't read, but also evidence that people will assume the simplest possible program model -- i.e., that their new AOL password works everywhere -- until they learn otherwise.

(Feel free to fast-forward over the pompous negroponteisms like his slide titled "This is the Age of Bits.") The video is here.

Techinterview: How does one find a loop in a singly linked list in O(n) time using constant memory? You cannot modify the list in any way (and constant memory means the amount of memory required for the solution cannot be a function of n.)

College students: my company has paid summer internships in New York City, including free housing, free lunch, and the chance to develop software people will really use, with great mentors on interesting projects. Don't miss this chance of a lifetime. We only have a few spaces and they always go fast, so apply today.

Want to know more?

You’re reading Joel on Software, stuffed with years and years of completely raving mad articles about software development, managing software teams, designing user interfaces, running successful software companies, and rubber duckies.

About the author.

I’m Joel Spolsky, founder of Fog Creek Software, a New York company that proves that you can treat programmers well and still be highly profitable. Programmers get private offices, free lunch, and work 40 hours a week. Customers only pay for software if they’re delighted. We make FogBugz, an enlightened project management system designed to help great teams develop brilliant software, and Fog Creek Copilot, which makes remote desktop access easy.