I prefer to sit with my users. As you can imagine, this concept is met with a bit of resistance in corporate America.
I want to dwell with them and be a part of their lives. I want to hear them bitch about their apps, their customers and vendors, their bosses, and each other. I want to know what they go through all day every day.
When I sit and suffer with them, the resulting software is always better. All the meetings, prototypes, demos, specs, etc., etc., etc. have never been able to deliver the same knowledge needed to develop their apps.
OTOH, I don't want to sit with other programmers, unless we're working on the same thing at the same time. I don't care about your problems, I have my own.
Interesting point of view. I've had the... luxury... of sitting with end users and I certainly agree with your statement that it produces better software. However, I couldn't see sitting with them all day long, unless the projects themselves were fairly small. I fear that I'd never get anything done, because once the users figure out that you can magically make the software do whatever it needs to, they'll be asking for the moon. Pushing back would only get you so far, I think.
I sit in an office with a pretty fantastic programmer and I've certainly benefited from his knowledge, though I can certainly relate to "I don't care about your problems, I have my own."!
At work I sit about 10 desks away from users. But immediately next to me are programmers (both working with me and are not working with me). Most of my users talk more often and not terribly understanding of breaking a programmers "zone". So they are close enough for necessary feedback and interaction, but not too close. As a programmer, I find programmers are much more quiet and peaceful to work next to. :)
I want to dwell with them and be a part of their lives. I want to hear them bitch about their apps, their customers and vendors, their bosses, and each other. I want to know what they go through all day every day.
When I sit and suffer with them, the resulting software is always better. All the meetings, prototypes, demos, specs, etc., etc., etc. have never been able to deliver the same knowledge needed to develop their apps.
OTOH, I don't want to sit with other programmers, unless we're working on the same thing at the same time. I don't care about your problems, I have my own.