
Removing Features - nirmal
http://ignorethecode.net/blog/2010/02/02/removing-features/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+IgnoreTheCode+%28ignore+the+code%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
======
pmichaud
This is an important truth.

On a related note, I (and I suspect many other hackers) have a billion cute
little applications I've written over the years that do very specific things
in exactly the way I want them done.

The interesting thing to me is that I'm reluctant (embarrassed?) to release
them because I'm afraid of the phantom snobbery that pervades engineering
culture. Since my apps and utilities are "trivial," I fully expect to be
ignored at best, or maybe scoffed at for my stupid, toy applications.

Then I thought, maybe that's an allegory for the whole software ecosystem...
everyone's so afraid of being "trivial," that few people are willing to do one
thing and do it really well.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
Sounds like your apps were made to run on *nix.

~~~
ams6110
Even *nix utilities have suffered the feature bloat problem. Many have so many
option flags that they exhaust the letters of the alphabet, both upper and
lower case, and move into the --wash-my-car-while-you-are-at-it styles. The
saving grace is that for the most part, these obscure options are completely
out of sight if you don't need them, but they do clutter up the man pages
quite a bit.

~~~
pmiller2
I believe it was Dennis Ritchie who said something to the effect of "Unix
bloat began when cat started taking options," or some such.

------
danskil
I see this as a fundamental concept of programming abstracted to the
application level. When you code a function you strive for modularity, for
your function to be re-usable as a building block. But if you're not careful
you can make your function take too many inputs and do too many calculations.
The same truths apply in code as in life. Keep things small, manageable, and
re-usable, and Good things will come to you.

