understanding

    Understanding a Misunderstanding

    Spotify has always behaved weirdly regarding how you queue tracks up. Today I think I realised why.

    They think “Queue this track up” means “Cue this track up”. They’re thinking like DJs, but they are confused by homophones.

    I’m thinking like a programmer, I admit: queues are first-in-first-out; but more importantly, like an ordinary person: you join a queue at the end, not just behind the person at the front.

    See this discussion on their suggestions board which explains the weirdness, and is where (as I was adding a comment) I suddenly understood their thinking. Also definition 2 of “cue” is the appropriate one.

    Edited: Queues are of course first-in-first-out, not last-in-first-out, as I wrote. That would be a stack, in programming terms. Whoops!