The More You Know The More You Expect

One thing that happens when you know who to write computer code is that you know how hard or easy some things are. If you’re even the least OCD some things that are minor, and even unnoticed to many, may bother you a little. Take this image for example.

I expect that money amounts will have two digits to the right of the decimal point. You'll notice that the second and third limes have two digits to the right of the decimal point. It turns out that those values will have two digits even if there is only a value for the tenth of a dollar and not the hundredths. So 5.10 for example. The first line will have no digits to the right if there is no value. So 0 without even the decimal point.

Now this is not really a big deal. One would think (if they were me) that since the second and third lines have the formatting I (most people?)  they would do the same for the first.

Getting the formatting "right" is easy. I know that (or at least assume that) because I have coded that sort of thing often. If I didn't know how to code it might not bother me at all. One might even assume it was hard to do.

I wonder if a lot of people assume that things are difficult and that they put up with bad user interfaces for that reason. Maybe they think things are harder than they are.  Maybe if more people understood coding they would be less likely to put up with hard to use programs.