4 ms·

No, choice is poison to a software program and should be avoided unless there are very good reasons to justify an additional option.

keithpeter 13y ago
I would suggest that retaining an option needed by some users with unusual perceptual requirements is a 'very good reason' (Personally, I do leave my XFCE4 desktop on default settings, but I do alter defaults in some packages)
- jodrellblank 13y ago
  If it was the only terminal emulator, there would be a good reason. The person in the link commenting "PUT IT BACK EVERY OTHER TERMINAL EMULATOR HAS IT" is more baffling. Both wanting choice and options, but at the same time not wanting to have to change when there are other options.
  - keithpeter 13y ago
    "If it was the only terminal emulator, there would be a good reason." Gnome Terminal may (effectively) be the only terminal emulator available to you if you do not have rights to install software or to change default software.
    - jodrellblank 13y ago
      If you are in an environment where you have to take what you are given, then whinging to the software developers to add in the functionality your boss won't let you have seems like the wrong move.
      - mpyne 13y ago
        Yes, you're right. They should apparently be whining to their boss to use something other than GNOME instead instead of trying to fix their work environment at the source.
        jodrellblank 13y ago
        I'm assuming the said boss would not have approved the update to GNOME without first checking that all the features they require the workforce to have in order to work, are present. Then yes, they should. If the boss gives you lemons, you don't go to the lemon tree and ask if it can make lemons that read email, browse NFS shares and change screensaver settings. You go to your boss and say "just-lemons isn't good enough".
        vacri 13y ago
        When you cook, do you just give people a bowl of nutrient paste, saying "that's all you need to remain functional"? But we'd like something with texture and flavour. "So what, it's not like those things are needed to be functional. You can get by without them."
lambda 13y ago
You know, I understand wanting to put a little pressure back on the "make everything configurable" crowd; there are a lot of software engineers who go a bit overboard on the "just make it an option" approach to design, and then wind up with big, bloated, buggy software that tries to do everything but fails at most of it and is frustrating to configure. However, "choice is poison" is a rather extreme over-compensation for this problem. Sometimes, options really do provide value. And many times, if they are designed correctly, they don't substantially increase cost; if the features are orthogonal and implemented independently, the additional complexity is only linear with the number of features, not quadratic or worse as happens if they are too interrelated. I understand that we want to get away from the "you need to spend hours customizing your environment to make it usable" approach to design that plagues some open source project, but going to the other extreme and saying that "choice is poison" is just as bad.
DanBC 13y ago
This is a baffling opinion to have on HN.
- cturner 13y ago
  There's plenty of precedent. The plan9 guys were very explicit about not having variable colours in acme. The suckless.org team say that you can configure whatever you like, but only through changing the source code. BeOS aimed to have no configuration and good defaults. I'd rather have something that was well thought through and is internally consistant than a grab-bag of customisation, none of which coexists well - like most linux desktops.
- Joeboy 13y ago
  I'm not baffled. Giving people fewer options seems like a pretty popular paradigm these days. We tried "Give people choice" in the '90s and '00s, and it turned out people were mostly unimpressed. "Opinionated software" is the paradigm du jour.

keithpeter 13y ago

I would suggest that retaining an option needed by some users with unusual perceptual requirements is a 'very good reason' (Personally, I do leave my XFCE4 desktop on default settings, but I do alter defaults in some packages)

jodrellblank 13y ago
If it was the only terminal emulator, there would be a good reason. The person in the link commenting "PUT IT BACK EVERY OTHER TERMINAL EMULATOR HAS IT" is more baffling. Both wanting choice and options, but at the same time not wanting to have to change when there are other options.
- keithpeter 13y ago
  "If it was the only terminal emulator, there would be a good reason." Gnome Terminal may (effectively) be the only terminal emulator available to you if you do not have rights to install software or to change default software.
  - jodrellblank 13y ago
    If you are in an environment where you have to take what you are given, then whinging to the software developers to add in the functionality your boss won't let you have seems like the wrong move.
    - mpyne 13y ago
      Yes, you're right. They should apparently be whining to their boss to use something other than GNOME instead instead of trying to fix their work environment at the source.
      - jodrellblank 13y ago
        I'm assuming the said boss would not have approved the update to GNOME without first checking that all the features they require the workforce to have in order to work, are present. Then yes, they should. If the boss gives you lemons, you don't go to the lemon tree and ask if it can make lemons that read email, browse NFS shares and change screensaver settings. You go to your boss and say "just-lemons isn't good enough".
        vacri 13y ago
        When you cook, do you just give people a bowl of nutrient paste, saying "that's all you need to remain functional"? But we'd like something with texture and flavour. "So what, it's not like those things are needed to be functional. You can get by without them."

lambda 13y ago

You know, I understand wanting to put a little pressure back on the "make everything configurable" crowd; there are a lot of software engineers who go a bit overboard on the "just make it an option" approach to design, and then wind up with big, bloated, buggy software that tries to do everything but fails at most of it and is frustrating to configure. However, "choice is poison" is a rather extreme over-compensation for this problem. Sometimes, options really do provide value. And many times, if they are designed correctly, they don't substantially increase cost; if the features are orthogonal and implemented independently, the additional complexity is only linear with the number of features, not quadratic or worse as happens if they are too interrelated. I understand that we want to get away from the "you need to spend hours customizing your environment to make it usable" approach to design that plagues some open source project, but going to the other extreme and saying that "choice is poison" is just as bad.

DanBC 13y ago

This is a baffling opinion to have on HN.

cturner 13y ago
There's plenty of precedent. The plan9 guys were very explicit about not having variable colours in acme. The suckless.org team say that you can configure whatever you like, but only through changing the source code. BeOS aimed to have no configuration and good defaults. I'd rather have something that was well thought through and is internally consistant than a grab-bag of customisation, none of which coexists well - like most linux desktops.
Joeboy 13y ago
I'm not baffled. Giving people fewer options seems like a pretty popular paradigm these days. We tried "Give people choice" in the '90s and '00s, and it turned out people were mostly unimpressed. "Opinionated software" is the paradigm du jour.