

Ask HN: Should you include extra features only if you can remove code elsewhere? - kamme

As a php webdeveloper I add code to websites on a daily basis, they even pay me for it! Most of the time it's the customer who wants extra feature a, thinks it would be nice to also include b and the finishing touch would be adding c! But after some time now, I notice things getting slower and slower even tough there are no extra hits. I regularly ask myself what happened to that clean, fast website I started developing ages ago. And it made me think... Lotus (the car manufacturer) makes it cars fast by removing weight and keeping it very simple, as such their design principle is "Performance through light weight". Shouldn't webdevelopers do the same thing? I remember them not including electric windows because that made the car a bit heavier, they only included them when they developed new tires that cut weight. I think people often forget about this, and I think that's a shame. But adding features is something that is done for the customer/site visitor most of the time. Now my question is:<p>What do you think about it? Should you just include all the features the customer/visitor wants or should you say no and ignore the requests? After all, speed matters a lot in our business...
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russell
Adding features at customer request degrades nearly anything. The requests
usually add very little but clutter at the expense of a clean design. You
should consider customer requests as you evolve your site, but don't be driven
by them or by your own inclination to add features. Think of all the baggage
in MS Word or the W3C specifications.

