pippin;494401 Wrote: > Sorry, but repeating this doesn't make it true. > Take TTP as an example. > > Hard coding the behavior makes for a straightforward approach. You have > an action and this action will result in some message being sent to some > object. Simple use case, simple test case. > Add a context menu for a different action. Similar. One use case, one > test case, one message. > I wonder if Philip is just trying to say that "properly tested software with a lot of options" might be better than "poorly tested software without any options".
To me, in many cases, options is an indication that you haven't done proper analysis of your users and you still want to try to satisfy everyone. If you do some analysis you can often get 80% satisfied users with fewer options. There will always be someone that refuse to agree with your choices, but assuming the usage analysis is correct you should still be able to satisfy most users with a lower cost in QA and maintenance. However, without proper analysis, my feeling is that you will have a bigger chance to satisfy more users if you add some more options. It will still require more testing and maintenance of course, but sometimes it's the easy way out when you don't know your users and want to get something out quickly. Of course, it's usually not a good idea to skip the analysis step, you will often realize the problem after a few releases when you have ended up with a mess with options that aren't consistent with each other. The Custom Browse plugin is a great example of how bad it can get with a lot of options. It can be configured more or less exactly as you like but most users give up because it's too complex to configure. Due to the large number of customization options its performance isn't as goods as it could have been. Of course, it still fulfills its original purpose which was to make it possible for advanced users to try out new menu structures without the need for a developer to write code for it. The TrackStat plugin is a great example of a plugin where there are a lot of options but most users never touch them so there was actually no need for customization. -- erland Erland Isaksson 'My homepage' (http://erland.isaksson.info) (Install my plugins through Extension Downloader) (Developer of 'TrackStat, SQLPlayList, DynamicPlayList, Custom Browse, Custom Scan, Custom Skip, Multi Library, Title Switcher and Database Query plugins' (http://wiki.erland.isaksson.info/index.php/Category:SlimServer)) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ erland's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3124 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=69471 _______________________________________________ beta mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/beta
