Friday June 5, 2020; 9:43 AM EDT
Alan Kay once said the Macintosh is the first computer worth criticizing. Really eloquent, makes-you-stop-and-think type quote. #- I was raised by parents who reacted as if criticism was an attack. If you don't deflect it, you will be hurt. They taught me that. I learned later in life that listening to criticism is the key to success. Alan Kay revealed a truth. We criticize something because we want it to be better. We are invested in it being better. Listen because you want to learn how to be better.#
- In software, we call such critiques bug reports. Some problems only happen on the users' machines. Or you may have learned to not do something that they do because they never learned not to do it. Or they use features in a way you would never think to, that seem natural to them. Or they don't read the docs (and btw, neither do you). People see facets of your creation that you can't see because your point of view is different from theirs. If you want to improve, if you want to see things that are possible that are invisible to you, you must pay attention to criticism and brush aside the fear it invokes.#