They only suck ’cause we let ‘em
I’m consistently frustrated and amazed by the inefficiencies of professional library software. In general, it’s bad, but when it comes to customizing interfaces and integrating components, they’re pretty much universally hopeless. We rarely ask for better. Like whipped dogs we slink around accepting whatever the vendors bestow upon us. It’s strange to me that we’d never put up with sub-standard services in other life arenas - static on our phone lines, for example, we’d get on the horn and demand better - but when faced with ineffectual software, we take it.
Karen Schneider explains this beautifully in her response to Casey’s post: Q: Why Do Some Things Suck?.
The problem is that the people making decisions are still in a box where they believe they need to purchase A, B, or C and continue providing services The Way They Always Done It. In some ways they
