On Tue, Jan 24, 2006 at 07:54:50PM -0800, Stewart Stremler wrote: > begin quoting Lan Barnes as of Tue, Jan 24, 2006 at 06:09:06PM -0800: > [snip] > > ... and programmers put really annoying features in just because they've > > figured out how to. > > Heh. This is on the way to becoming a nearly-standard rant for me. > > Programmers are generally clever people. Decent ones Figure Stuff Out. > And, not suprising, they like to *use* the Stuff They Figure Out. > > This leads to a problem: programmers figure out how to do something, > and then look around for where they can apply it. Sometimes this is > good (Oh, look, I can have every program print out it's options, with > descriptive help message, plus it can generate a template configuration > file for the user to modify!), and sometimes this is not so good (I just > got back from a seminar on design patterns, I wonder how many of I'm I > can use in one program?). > > We are very much a "I have a hammer, everything looks like a nail -- > screws are kinda like nails, right? And bolts are kinda like screws. So > therefore, a bolt is a nail." breed.
I see it mostly in data verification, required fields, and privileges and authentication. They're all neaty keen, so we put lots of them in. Then the users can't enter anything that deviates even slightly from the norm, or enter what they know and come back later with the rest, etc etc. Pretty soon people are filling out paper forms before sitting down to make sure they have everything they need to get a record all the way through entry. -- Lan Barnes [EMAIL PROTECTED] Linux Guy, SCM Specialist 858-354-0616 -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
