The Annoyance of Haxies

Corey Redlien on last week’s Rich Siegel-v.-Drunkenbatman haxie-compatibility imbroglio:

Still, how about all of those other users out there who don’t write in? They just had a bad experience with my software, and it’s not my fault! For every one person who writes in with their bad haxie-induced experience, there’s probably 100 that don’t write in, and therefore are likely to get the impression that my software stinks out loud. They don’t realize that their haxie caused the problem. I’ve just lost money because of some other program on their system. Money I would have loved to make by fixing my code to work with their particular haxie, except for the fact, that I probably can’t do anything about it!

Most regular users just don’t realize what they’re doing when they install stuff.

I could have done without yet another analogy comparing haxies to after-market car add-ons, but this is a good take from the perspective of an app developer.

★ Saturday, 3 December 2005