More notes on bug blindness

Some misc. notes following up on the bug-blindness discussion Dan Luu prompted earlier this week: I've long advocated developing the skill of describing software that you want, whether it's something totally new or a better(-for-you) version of something that exists. This is useful in several ways: describing the desired software precisely is illuminating; you might some day have time to make software but want ideas for what to build; and cultivating a critical eye for software is valuable. Because of that last aspect, the ability to describe non-existent desirable software seems to me adjacent to having "bug vision" of the sort Dan describes. I missed an important aspect of bug blindness in the previous post: when someone hits a bug, they often assume they must have been using the software wrong or must be confused about its purpose. (There is, of course, also a third-person version of this belief.) Do not underestimate the relevant social dynamics. Once, when I worked on a…