Re: More Political Stuff

[Sean Middleditch <sean middleditch iname com>]

> On 25 Aug 2000, Sean Middleditch wrote:
> 
> > > I'm curious to hear what has been rushed, in your opinion.  
> > 
> > In a few years, an awesome desktop has been put together.  So many
> > features, libraries, etc. have been created for an excellent desktop and
> > development.  But a lot of the flaws I see, a lot of the design issues
> > that we are reworking (replacing gmc, goad, etc.) I feel like it was
> > rushed, and we might not have to be replacing so much right now but
> > instead developing a rock-solid system.  Instead we're spending a lot of
> > time right now fixing a lot of old design flaws, replacing them with
> > better architectures that would allow us to make REALLY nifty stuff in a
> > year or so... but if we had slowed down a tad bit, and not made of the
> > design flaws we had, perhaps we could have been doing the nifty stuff in
> > only a month or two... sort of.. see my point?  Now that i've woken up I
> > think I've lost it...
> 
> You're on crack. :)
> 

I thought someone's been putting something strangen my food... ~,^

> The reason things like GOAD and GMC are getting replaced is not because
> they were rushed initially, but because we now have the experience to know
> better.
> 
> For example, GOAD definitely wasn't rushed, but there is NO way I could
> have ever hoped to make OAF suck as little as it does without having
> endured a year of GOAD's limitations. I'm sure in a year or two, OAF will
> need replacing or revamping with an even better solution (I already know
> of a possible problem or two that has caught my eye).
> 

Hmm, my old 'mentor' always said that careful planning would ensure that
you could get things right, and I've followed that rule very much; most
systems I design AFTER sitting down and thinking about them turn out
very well.  Its the ones I rush through that I always end up rewriting..

> At the time, GMC seemed like a very good idea - we would get to reuse code
> from mc and build a nice file manager - but we learned about the other
> problems once things were in a working state.
> 

That makes more sense, I suppose.

> The problem is not that things were rushed, but that it is impossible to
> produce a perfect design without infinite experience, and humans are
> neither perfect nor infinite.

Are you saying I'm not perfect?  ~,^

Alright, you win, I rushed to the conclusion...  I'm afraid I do that a
little more than I should for my own good.

Sean Etc.

> -- Elliot
> DEAR IRS, Please cancel my subscription.
> 
> 
> 
>