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I think I can isolate the entire issue to this one line, emphasis mine: > Only a small percentage (6.1%-16.7%) of configuration parameters are set by the major

I think I can isolate the entire issue to this one line, emphasis mine: > Only a small percentage (6.1%-16.7%) of configuration parameters are set by the majority of users; a significant percentage (up to 54.1%) of parameters are rarely set by any user. The necessary question is, how many installations used at least one rarely-set parameter? Would those installations have happened without that parameter? How much effort went into developing that parameter, versus the profits of those installations?

Negitivefrags 10y ago
Reminds me of this article: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000020.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000020.html The pull out quote being: A lot of software developers are seduced by the old "80/20" rule. It seems to make a lot of sense: 80% of the people use 20% of the features. So you convince yourself that you only need to implement 20% of the features, and you can still sell 80% as many copies. Unfortunately, it's never the same 20%. Everybody uses a different set of features.
- felipeerias 10y ago
  The same idea applies to those advocating for having "simple" and "expert" configuration menus: everybody's expertise is different, and changes over time as we learn and forget things.
- rasz_pl 10y ago
  Plus there are power users and sheep. Sheep will follow power users, power users will expect extra features. No configurability means no power users means no sheep.
afro88 10y ago
Right - just because I rarely change a parameter doesn't mean it's not important. In fact, some of the most important parameters are set once and then forgotten about.
- tehrei 10y ago
  Like, say, IFS in bash. Have you ever needed to set IFS? Do you know what it does? I've set it maybe 5 times and practically each one was to $'\n' so I can read newline-delimited input values in a while loop. But I appreciate the fact that I can set it to literally anything, if I ever need to.
  - JoshTriplett 10y ago
    > I've set it maybe 5 times and practically each one was to $'\n' so I can read newline-delimited input values in a while loop. Does "| while read line" not do what you want here?
sopooneo 10y ago
Also, until you have lots of users, how can you guess which 6.1%-16.7% of parameters most of them will use?
ball_of_lint 10y ago
This makes me think of a cached model of settings: Most used can be configured in-app Less used need to edit the config Least used need to be set at build/install

Negitivefrags 10y ago

Reminds me of this article: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000020.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000020.html The pull out quote being: A lot of software developers are seduced by the old "80/20" rule. It seems to make a lot of sense: 80% of the people use 20% of the features. So you convince yourself that you only need to implement 20% of the features, and you can still sell 80% as many copies. Unfortunately, it's never the same 20%. Everybody uses a different set of features.

felipeerias 10y ago
The same idea applies to those advocating for having "simple" and "expert" configuration menus: everybody's expertise is different, and changes over time as we learn and forget things.
rasz_pl 10y ago
Plus there are power users and sheep. Sheep will follow power users, power users will expect extra features. No configurability means no power users means no sheep.

afro88 10y ago

Right - just because I rarely change a parameter doesn't mean it's not important. In fact, some of the most important parameters are set once and then forgotten about.

tehrei 10y ago
Like, say, IFS in bash. Have you ever needed to set IFS? Do you know what it does? I've set it maybe 5 times and practically each one was to $'\n' so I can read newline-delimited input values in a while loop. But I appreciate the fact that I can set it to literally anything, if I ever need to.
- JoshTriplett 10y ago
  > I've set it maybe 5 times and practically each one was to $'\n' so I can read newline-delimited input values in a while loop. Does "| while read line" not do what you want here?

sopooneo 10y ago

Also, until you have lots of users, how can you guess which 6.1%-16.7% of parameters most of them will use?

ball_of_lint 10y ago

This makes me think of a cached model of settings: Most used can be configured in-app Less used need to edit the config Least used need to be set at build/install