Gerry Shaw: >I do understand the slipperly slope of this but what I'm trying to do is >make writing complicated tasks feasible.
In my mind the good design of a powerful tool makes it easy to do common things, and possible to do things however the user wants -- including things the designer may not have thought of. Regarding the slippery slope question: Its an equally valid argument for NAnt to put up signs indicating the slope exists as it is to argue that no slopes should be created. IOW, if the feature makes some things easier (esp. things you want to do with the tool) then add it, and in the documentation, place them in an "Advanced Techniques" section with a disclaimer of their potential for abuse. >Maybe we can find a better solution? It seems to me that there is nothing inherently right or wrong about functions in themselves, but rather how closely they fit with the design goals for NAnt. To get at what I mean by this, I included two links that explain it better than I can: http://www.paulgraham.com/design.html and section three here: http://www.paulgraham.com/arcll1.html In short, when answering whether a feature is "safe" or "easily misunderstood", one must first ask, who is this tool for? Are you building the tool that you want to use? Are you building the tool so that it protects everyone (including yourself) from misuse? Are you building this tool for experts to use effectively? Primarily Novices? etc. Best, Bill William E. Caputo ThoughtWorks, Inc. ------------------------------------------------------- This sf.net email is sponsored by:ThinkGeek Welcome to geek heaven. http://thinkgeek.com/sf _______________________________________________ Nant-developers mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nant-developers
