Ha, I know that story from the Julia Donaldson kids book (and song) "A Squash and a Squeeze" [1]. So true too. We don't appreciate how good things are, or how much we are capable of, until they get a lot worse.
I highly recommend Clarke Ching's "Rolling Rocks Downhill" audiobook [1] which is a novel that teaches/refreshes agile software development in a really engaging way. I'd love to know if there are more novels like that out there - I haven't managed to find any.
I'm getting bored with podcasts these days because most of them have too much idle chat. Shows like "99% Invisible" that are well produced and low on chit chat are fine but I think audiobooks are the way forward.
In the Pragmatic Programmer book [1], to help make the point that if you keep your code clean, it is more likely to stay that way, the authors cite the "broken windows" theory [2]. They mention a case where police observed an abandoned car lying untouched on a dark street for days, but once a window was smashed, vandals destroyed the car within hours [3]. I don't know much beyond that, but the theory rings true to me and I try to do my bit to stop it, in code and in real life.
Ever since I learned about the Broken Window Theory of urban decay in The Pragmatic Programmer I try to pick up litter and tidy things up where I can. Worst case, someone laughs at you for wasting your time, but even then you're making the world a better place by making people laugh. It's all good :)
Completely agree - Toca Boca definitely have the right approach here. In our safe YouTube for kids app, DuckyTube, we tried hard to make the children's part of the app look fun while making the grownup parts of the app (selecting videos from YouTube, sharing with friends, etc.) look more businesslike so kids are drawn to click the duck and get back to the fun part. Similarly, if there is an error or whatever that we have to interrupt the app we make the "Continue" button look most interesting so children prefer to click it.
Another bugbear of mine is children's apps that make it too difficult for parents to access the menus. One of our competitors requires you to go to the iPhone Settings page for the app, turn on the "Show Menu" option and return to the app to press the Menu button. Then when you are done you have to repeat the process to turn it off again!
Hi, I’m Rodhán. An experienced CTO and mobile app developer, ready to help you solve your business, product or engineering problems!
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