As a sometime software developer, I always like to hear other developers talk about the problems they've faced and the lessons they've drawn from solving (or not solving) those problems. Most developers, though, only share those stories with their friends over beers. While a lot of those stories deserve no wider an audience, the rest represent hard-won wisdom that could benefit others. For the most part, though, even in this text-soaked age, that wisdom remains only part of an oral tradition, slowly diffused drink by drink and engineer by engineer.
That's why it's refreshing and encouraging to see something like Marco Arment's "Browse vs. Search: Which Deserves to Go?". It's a brief history of a design decision he made in his Instapaper product and an assessment of that decision.
In taking the time to write up his own learning experience, Arment has helped other developers to avoid a mistake he made, and encouraged them to think about the right way to approach similar problems. It's a generous act that I, for one, appreciate.
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