RE: ??? (was RE: A simple guy with a simple problem)

["Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@simonstl.com>]

At 03:47 PM 3/14/01 -0600, Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:
>No.  Simple is good.  Too simple for
>safety is bad.  Knowing which is which
>is the trick.

I think I'm getting tired of suggestions that we keep selling rope to 
people who may or may not hang themselves accidentally.  We're not talking 
safety features here, I don't think.  At best, we're selling doodads and 
gizmos which need warning labels.

>DTDs?  Schemas?  How do you know when
>what is simple for you is too simple
>for the next guy?   How do you know
>that what Henry proposes isn't precisely
>what is needed for that guy to get
>his job done?

If specs were designed to meet the needs of _everyone_, we wouldn't ever 
get specs.  Your mythical 'next guy' seems to me like a justification for 
never-ending feature addition, not a recipe for successful specs.

>We can't treat XML
>spec work as an XP programming
>exercise.  There isn't enough
>room in front of the screen for
>everyone involved to sit down and
>write the unit tests.

There's lots and lots of room for everyone to sit down in front of their 
own screen and write their own tests and do what works for them, without 
concern for the 'next guy' over who might need a lot of extra features to 
make his project work.

Do you really hate iterative development so much that you want to inflict 
top-down design on everyone?  Geez...

>Daring to do less is still a dare.

As is daring to do more, or daring to do nothing.


Simon St.Laurent - Associate Editor, O'Reilly and Associates
XML Elements of Style / XML: A Primer, 2nd Ed.
XHTML: Migrating Toward XML
http://www.simonstl.com - XML essays and books