Mind Your Head

In the 1990s, Bare Bones Software released a text editor called BBEdit with the tagline “It Doesn’t Suck.” It retains the tagline to this day. It was a brilliant marketing strategy. Who’s their market? Programmers.

Programmers can be pessimistic and sarcastic. Many will tell you about 100 things that don’t work for every one thing that does. The highest praise a programmer will often give a product is, “It isn’t terrible.”

Pessimist programmers are in good company. According to some reports, the vast majority of projects fail, around 80 or 90 percent. It’s not that the good 10 or 20 percent succeed; it’s some hodgepodge of good and bad. It almost seems that bland products are more successful, on average, than really good ones. When a programmer says a particular product is not up standard, chances are they are right.