Early in my career I had to do some data entry tasks and I hated the cobbled together system the company used. So I built my own data entry program for the company data. Pretty soon the guys in the field got hold of it and loved it. Spending time with them, getting their comments and feedback really spurred me on to make the thing better and better. Not to mention feeling pretty good watching all these professionals working away using my programs.

In later years dealing with a company building industry specific software I had a lot of trouble getting the developers to really understand how issues in their software were affecting our guys in the field. Talking to the coders themselves, they didn't seem that interested. I did convince a manager to send a programmer "out amongst the users" and the change was remarkable and very positive. The coder could see for himself how his stuff was being used and he developed a personal relationship with "real" people using his work. He was quite proud to see it all in operation

It seems to me that all the coding rooms I have seen are keeping the coders in dungeons and away from any real users - so how on earth are the coders really going to understand what the users' issues really are??? And how are they going to take pride in something they never see anyone really using?