

Short story from Panic about spending forever to perfect three pixels - karzeem
http://www.cabel.name/2007/09/coda-toolbar-and-three-pixel-conundrum.html

======
karzeem
It's always a tough call in these situations whether the improvement is worth
all the work (and the time spent away from other, bigger issues). Zooming out
a little, though, it's hard to imagine how you could develop a well-designed,
elegant product without occasionally pulling your hair out over little things.
It's just nice knowing that other people go through the same thing.

~~~
alex_c
>And we ended up writing our own very faux-toolbar from scratch.

It SHOULDN'T be a tough call in a situation like this. There shouldn't even be
a call to make. I literally got goosebumps when I read that paragraph in the
article.

This is a textbook example of goldplating. No, actually... this goes beyond
goldplating. It's goldplating combined with reinventing the wheel.

There is NO WAY the extra effort this requires will be worth it. The initial
effort to implement it - maybe. The initial effort plus the extra effort to
maintain their own faux-toolbar - no way. I'm willing to bet that in version 2
- or at most version 3 - it will be replaced with a standard toolbar.

What happened to KISS? Like I've said in another post - if something is
getting more and more complicated as you work on it, it's time to backtrack
because there's a good chance that you're doing it wrong.

I'm happy that the designer got nice-looking buttons, but I think the rest of
the team dropped the ball on this one by allowing it. I'm not usually this
vehement about something, but there's no conceivable way I can be convinced
that this was the right decision.

~~~
reitzensteinm
It's a shame I can only vote you up once. I agree 100%. The old "if this
concerns you, you're done - ship it" doesn't really cover what's going on
here.

If this was the most attractive potential feature from an ROI perspective,
you're not just done, you sold the company years ago and you're sitting on the
beach sipping cocktails, thinking up crazy side projects with the sole purpose
of reassuring yourself how pitiful the burn rate is compared to the interest
on your vast piles of cash.

~~~
comatose_kid
I've got to disagree here. Touches like this are what elevate software from
merely functional to great.

Maniacal attention to detail is what separates the great from the merely good
enough. Examples? Dyson vacuum cleaners, the original Macintosh, the iPod,
probably any product you really like.

The thing about effort like this is that the few days of extra time invested
will be shared by every user of the finished product.

~~~
reitzensteinm
I'm not saying it's a bad idea because it's too much attention to detail. I'm
saying it's a bad idea because it's misplaced. They're talking about taking
considerable effort to reskin a standard OS GUI component here - they are
standard for a _reason_. I would consider this not just wasted effort, but a
negative, if I found it in any of the applications I use day to day.

I'm 100% for maniacal devotion to attention to detail. I live it and breathe
it in the games I make. I don't tolerate a single frame of object behaviour
being out of place. But you've got to focus it in the right place, and that's
what I'm saying is the problem with doing something like this - there are just
too many improvements that you could be working on that your users will find
much more helpful. I've definitely been too fanatical about what I wanted
versus what my users have wanted in the past.

That said, the app in question won a user experience award at the Apple Design
Awards, so maybe they're right and I'm wrong. They can certainly make amazing
software. But even with that in mind, I stand by what I'm saying.

------
vlad
I doubt it took 'forever' to create; I interpreted the article to mean it was
low on the priority list, not hard to do. Drawing the custom toolbar was
likely as straight-forward as it gets.

First, in the desktop programming world, where you may only have about a dozen
gadgets to choose from, you must extend a control, use a third-party control,
or draw your own. This wasn't about three pixels, this was about making the
program look the way the designer intended it to. There is more to programming
than just adding features and avoiding bugs.

If you're a startup, you must focus on programming. If you have customers with
high expectations and need to make nice screenshots to impress Mac
enthusiasts, you should make the software look as special as you can.

