Bug guilt trips

, Will Kahn-Greene | share this (mastodon)
Note: This is an old post in a blog with a lot of posts over a long span of time. The world has changed, technologies have changed, and I've changed. It's likely this is out of date, the code doesn't work, the ideas haven't aged well, or the ideas were terrible to begin with. Let me know if you think this is something that needs updating.

Reading this post on Bug Guilt Trips and this was super! But I have to add the following which account for almost all the bug/feature related emails I get:

  • It would be more efficient if... (this is my personal favorite since it's almost never accompanied by any kind of explanation as to why the sender thinks it's more efficient or what conditions the existing code is inefficient in)

  • You need feature x, otherwise no one will use <software>...

  • It would be more user-friendly if...

  • Everyone will want feature x...

  • Your documentation is terrible...

The last one is totally true. But it's not because I'm a bad person--it's more because I'm pretty much a one-man band and I just don't have time to do everything, so some items suffer until enough people complain (or better yet--contribute).

With Lyntin, I think I've got a really decent user base that's pretty able considering that the documentation is fairly lacking. I wish they were a bit more communicative, but otherwise, it's perfect for my tastes. Easy to deal with, friendly, mature, not overly needy, and pretty supportive. It's one of those things that I think would be somewhat spoiled if I lowered the bar of entry to using Lyntin by making it all user-friendly and such. Who knows? The main important thing to keep in the back of everyone's mind is that Lyntin development is so totally not my day job and I'm more interested in a sophisticated framework than I am in a fancy user interface.

Want to comment? Send an email to willkg at bluesock dot org. Include the url for the blog entry in your comment so I have some context as to what you're talking about.