From: Chuq Von Rospach <chuqui@plaidworks.com> On Thursday, April 10, 2003, at 01:43 PM, John Fenley wrote:If a system works well to begin with: Stops spam, ignores mailing lists, allows personal contact, and uses a single address with no modification. why would you need customisation features.because things like "allow personal contact" or "ignores mailing lists" are complexities that are going to need flexibility to implement. Because some users are going to want it to work the way they want, not the way we think they should use it.
I say "Offer it and see if people are happy with it." Flexibility comes from seeing problems and adapting. "You can't please all of the people all of the time."
I really think there's going to be a tool here with two modes, a simple mode and a wizard mode. In simple mode, it does a few things easy and well. Users who want more control can flip a switch and see other options to use.That could be, but does not affect the validity(if any) of a particular solution.
I have had the system in mind for 5 days now, and known exactly how it will work. Each time I have updated it, it is because I know what it can do, and what it can't. I adapt the idea.In my mind customization features are a symptom of loose thinking: "I don't know exactly how this should work,none of us know exactly how this works yet, actually, but more important, I see it instead as a way to handle a wide variety of needs and requirements the way users want them handled. I try to force software to do waht customers want the way customers want it done, not force customers to do things in ways that make it easy for the software...