Computer programmers are mainly useless

Let me explain

When we had the boarding kennels and cattery i was looking for an animal boarding program for windows 7 , up to then I had windows XP

So I looked on the internet and there were some with 5 animal limit tryouts. The problem with all of them is everything was umpteen pages to go through

For example
one page for cients name and address- another for animal type- animal name- vets- vacination dates-dates booked-etc .all in all each required looking a 15-20 screens just to make a booking.

As if we had time to do all that and run a business.

So I contacted 2 or 3 that I had looked at and asked a what to me was a simple question. " How many boarding kennels did you consult before writing that boarding program "

answer NONE.

this is typical of most computer programmers, they never ever consult the end user to find out what they want.

Have to say right here and now AZZ is one of the exceptions
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It is the same when new bylaw regulations came into force regarding animal boarding establishments
Those who introduced them never consulted private boarding establishments but went to places like the vet assoc- - RSPCA etc etc. So I rang the institute of enviormental engineers who drew up these guidelines, and they had not consulted or even visited a private boarding kennels

Why don't these type of people do their homework first and see what the end user has to say?????


Just to say one of the new conditions was all exercise areas must be covered!

my dog exercise area was a huge 1/4 acre paddock, was I to cover that over and how high should the cover be and made of what?


Thank goodness we are now retired

Re: Computer programmers are mainly useless

Basically what you've identified there is that you are a programmers worst scenario. A customer who hasn't the faintest clue about how system work and all of the valuable data that absolutely DOES have to be assembled, and more crucially, maintained, in order for a system to work.

The Data Model is the very heart of any system. I spent 30 years being an expert in Data Models. It requires the painstaking processes of going through a customers books, files, records etc to pick out what data types they use, and then you have to design a database around that.

Essentially systems and data analysis.

My FIL used to race pigeons and was always looking for a system that would allow him to keep records of his pigeons and their pedigrees etc. There were only a couple of systems on the market really so everyone was forced to use those.

The reason is that these frankly rather poxy end solutions are few and the people that run them don't want to be spending £1000s on their computer systems.

So therein is the dilemma. No programmer is going to want all the work and hassle of analysing and designing your data model for a pittance. There are always far more lucrative pieces of work out there.

Building a simple database is actually not that difficult. I spent much of my career being an expert in MS Access and Visual Basic as well as much larger systems (Oracle, SQL, ARS).

But any end-user can pick up MS Access (which is part of Office Professional) and build themselves a database in which to maintain their records.

Otherwise you'd have to pay the going rate for an analyst and programmer.

Re: Computer programmers are mainly useless

It's a special kind of arrogance isn't it. We needed a website for our rescue, it quickly became obvious the people providing it had no interest in animals and couldn't deal with people at all.

Re: Computer programmers are mainly useless

Computer systems have absolutely zero to do with animals. That you can't see that as an end-user would tend to compromise any computer company's ability to build a solution for you.

What you need is an employee would understands computers and the business and has enough nouse to be able to tell a computer company what they want.

You wouldn't hire a plumber and expect him to be interested in the animals or business. He just wants and needs to know where you want the pipes fitting.

You're the kind of person Julie that would set out to project manage the building of your own house and be in total chaos by the 2nd day with all manner of workmen standing around waiting for some kind of guidance.

Re: Computer programmers are mainly useless

Actually you are wrong, when we look for a plumber for the rescue of an electrician they have to be dog lovers, if they aren't they aren't welcome. I would never be arrogant enough to dream I could project manage a house build either, therefore I don't think anyone should offer a service they are unfit to complete. That's what many programmers do IMO .

Re: Computer programmers are mainly useless

Julie, it really isn't a hardship to write your own relational database using Microsoft Access.

A six week course at your college of further education should do the trick.

Re: Computer programmers are mainly useless

Yes one of our foster ladies discovered that and we've been very impressed with what she has produced for us. But thank you for the advice.

Re: Computer programmers are mainly useless

Hi

Computer programmers are only as good as the instructions given to them.

They cannot read minds.

Re: Computer programmers are mainly useless

Realist
A prorgrammer should be able to build a program not only able to do what the end user wants but also make it as easy as they can for them to use.

All the ones I spoke to hadn't even made the slightest effort to understand let alone visit or work in conjunction with the end user. They all thought they knew and went ahead with programmes totally useless for the task

In your reply is typical of looking at a program development purely from the programmers side, which is what i kept coming across, no understanding from the end users point of view

If I asked someone to build a fish pond I don't expect them to build an Olympic size swimming pool.