Miscellaneous - Harry Potter will teach you how to think.

If this doesn't count as an on-topic post, that's fine. I wanted to share this regardless.

Let me clarify that this is the only fan fiction I am an active reader of. It is a what-if analysis of Harry Potter in which the characters all gain about 20 IQ points and are capable of rational thought.

It's a product of LessWrong.com, an excellent website even if you don't like Harry Potter and/or don't have the time to read a ~100 chapter book that still isn't even finished.

It includes topics from a variety of sciences, including computer science, but the most common theme is how and why humans suck at serious problem solving and rational thought, and how to fix these problems by instilling some mental discipline. The harry potter format is just a wrapper to allow situations where the methods of rationality can be applied. It's also pretty hilarious.

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

Better than the regular Harry Potter in my opinion. 

Juice and Software.

Let's talk about Juice.

Video probably necessary.

"Juice" is an important part of software. Creating a user experience that makes people walk away going "wow, I never knew spreadsheets could be so much fun" is absolutely a key priority, probably THE key priority. Creating a useful, diverse, powerful application isn't going to accomplish anything unless people use it, and nobody is going to use your application unless:

A) your software does something nobody else's can, in which case, you might still flop.

B) your software is already the staple utility of a large workforce.

C) you can acquire and maintain a user base by being user-friendly and properly "juicy".

Exceptions may apply. Several major graphics packages (3ds Max, Maya) are great examples of item B. They started out with a relative few core features, and have had new features bolted-on for decades, resulting in submenus within submenus and the need for a search bar in the options menu.

The "real" term for juice is user experience, and there's a field that corresponds to it: user experience design

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_experience_design

A key point to take away from the wikipedia article is that, while software engineering seems more about the architecture of the code, making it maintainable and easy to add features to, reliable, and so on, the component of making users enjoy using your software is a major one as well. People have built whole careers out of user experience design, and while I'm not sure if it's something I would want to do, I might consider it!