Thread by @tottinge

Readability is a relationship between an artifact and an audience, and we all know that. It's not just the artifact, but here is a funky example.

I got a great new overdrive pedal for Christmas. It looks like this:

The weird bit is that usually the bass/treble EQ controls are together, and the volume/gain controls are together.
This time they're not and that was confusing to me.
Why such a weird order?

Well, the order is completely sensible.
100% brilliantly correctly placed and reasonable.
Just in a way I wasn't considering.

The bass EQ setting is applied before the gain.
The gain is applied before the volume.
The treble adjustment is post-everything.

so, yeah, placement mirrors the signal path.

Once you know that there is no other ordering of the knobs that makes sense.

I didn't even have to look to write these posts.
I know exactly where they are and exactly what they mean, and can even base decisions on that.

There is a shared understanding between the artifact (a pedal in this case) and its audience (me, as a guitar player) that makes it readable, memorable, logical.

Sometimes to reach that shared understanding you raise the level of the audience, sometimes you raise the degree of understanding embodied in the artifact.

But once you are there, you have this beautiful union where the makers, the artifact, and the audience are together in a meaningful way with the purpose of the thing.

Do this with source code and tools.
Please.

Silly sidenote: I asked for it because I thought it would be funny that I'm "Tim" and it's "Timmy," then I researched it and saw how revered it is, now I know why. A wonderful present: I'm enjoying it very much.