

Never tell a developer it's not possible (rant) - piotr_krzyzek

There is one thing that I&#x27;ve found that&#x27;ll boil blood faster than anything in a developer: telling him (or her) that something isn&#x27;t possible (in code).<p>I recently had the displeasure of signing up for a service where their system is actually pretty good, though it has a few. Being in business and being a developer I thought, hey ... it&#x27;s a Sunday evening might as well have some programming fun to see if I can work around this system issue.<p>Before starting I shot off an email to the support team to ask if maybe I missed a button, option or setting somewhere. Eventually they replied with Nope, not possible within their own system. Normally that would be understandable right? Some systems just don&#x27;t have some features, not the end of the world.<p>Except ... this issue is about having hidden input fields when submitting an opt-in form. I find it rather handy to have hidden fields which let me track where my opt-ins are coming from, thus it&#x27;s kind of a required feature for me. Though their reply was specifically &quot;not possible inside our email system&quot;. Well, after going back and forth and telling them I&#x27;m not using their email system, but just their opt-in page editor and using MailChimp which can accept reasonably any field ... I knew for a fact it can be done. It&#x27;s just a simple &lt;input type=&quot;hidden&quot; .....&gt; field!<p>After a few heated emails back and forth they just stopped replying and I got to working around their issues.<p>Suffice it to say: custom code and hidden input fields do certainly work, just have to work around it a little bit. So never, ever tell a developer something isn&#x27;t possible when we know for a fact it is possible (based on their system setup).<p>Sorry for the rant.<p>Moral of the story? Literally anything you want is possible with code. Don&#x27;t tell developers something is not possible or we&#x27;ll go around proving you wrong. It&#x27;s bad for business.
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tptacek
I'm not sure I understand this rant.

You were considering an offering from a SAAS company.

You needed a feature they didn't have.

They opted not to provide you with that feature.

You are aware that the feature, like most features, was possible.

[???]

Your blood is now boiling.

Can you fill in the [???] blank for me?

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piotr_krzyzek
It's the tone and response that annoyed me. Not that the SaaS didn't have said
feature.

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mcnamaratw
The phrase "not possible" is overloaded. It can mean "I claim this is
technically not possible" or it can be a polite way of saying "Thanks for the
feedback but you're the only person who has asked for that and we've been
awake since Tuesday."

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27182818284
>After a few heated emails back and forth they just stopped replying and I got
to working around their issues.

You could be the reason someone's significant other sighed and seemed bummed
over dinner somewhere in the world. On a weekend.

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Spoom
Hidden in here is the unstated assumption that they should develop _and
support_ this feature, for your probably sole use, for free.

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seekingcharlie
1\. How much effort is required to build this feature? 2\. How many other
people have requested this feature?

Just saying "Mailchimp has this feature" doesn't really answer any of the 2
questions above. Mailchimp are a HUGE team with A LOT of resources.

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jbeales
> their system is actually pretty good, though it has a few.

Miss a word?

> Literally anything you want is possible with code.

I came here to say this. Anything is possible with code, (although sometimes
the effort is not worth the reward).

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piotr_krzyzek
Yup, missed a word. Will commit lyrical seppuku as penance.

