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In college computer science classes, we learn all about b*trees and linked lists and sorting algorithms and a ton of crap that I honestly have never, ever used, in 25 years of professional programming. (Except hash tables. Learn those. You’ll use them!)
What I do write – every day, every hour – are heuristics that try to understand and intuit what the user is telling me, without her having to learn my language.
The field of computer interaction is still in its infancy. Computers are too hard to use, they require us to waste our brains learning too many things that aren’t REAL knowledge, they’re just stupid computer conventions.
On Heuristics and Human Factors by Wil Shipley.