🧨 The Last Intuitive Developer: A Rant Forty Years in the Making 🧨
“I built good software because I’d been through so much bad software.”
That was always my mantra. And now, I say it with even more fury. Because the software today? It’s worse than ever. And I hate it—with the fire of a thousand suns.
I’ve been building software for over forty years.
Not websites. Not apps. Software. Real systems that ran shipping fleets, government programs, public safety infrastructure. I didn’t write for clicks or ad impressions—I solved real problems for real people. And I designed things to be intuitive. Because back then, you had to. Nobody was going to take a training course to learn how to click a damn button.
Fast forward to today.
Now I’m trying to open a WAV file on Microsoft OneDrive. I know I uploaded it. I know what it’s called. But the system, in its infinite gaslighting, hides it in some half-synced ghost folder. I try to log in—it sends a code to my email. I open the email to get the code. I switch back to OneDrive to enter it.
And the form is gone.
Poof.
No way back. No retry. No logic. Just rage.
This isn’t a bug. This is a feature.
This is what software has become: bloated, opaque, and hostile to anyone who dares to think.
When I started, we didn’t write manuals for basic interactions. You could sit down and know what to do. The user interface respected your intelligence. Menus meant something. Options were visible. Checkboxes stayed checked.
Now, you’re lucky if you can find your own files without watching a YouTube tutorial narrated by someone half your age and three times as smug.
Modern software treats you like a toddler and punishes you if you act like an adult. Every setting is hidden behind a euphemistic toggle or a "Help me decide" button that doesn’t actually let you decide anything.
And if you dare to ask for control?
You’re the problem.
No. I reject that.
The best software was—and should still be—invisible. Elegant. Predictable. Logical. We lost something when we stopped designing for understanding and started designing for dependency.
I’m not nostalgic for punch cards. I don’t want to go back to DOS.
But I am nostalgic for the era when software worked with the user—not against them.
And maybe I am the last intuitive developer. But I’m not going quietly. I’m here to rage, to build, and to remember what it felt like when you could trust the tools in your hands.
Because I still believe we can make it better.
And I’m not done fighting.