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Tell me what your software DOESN'T do... (a rant)

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tranglos:
So imagine you're checking out a new text editor. The screenshots are the epitome of elegance, the feature list is enthralling, and the configuration possibilities are nothing short of hypnotizing. You download it, install it, maybe play with it for hours - weeks! - and it looks just royally good - until one night at 3 a.m. or thereabout you realize it doesn't do word wrap.

I've just had an experience quite like this with Joomla - the best, the featurest, the supportedest, the extensiblest of CMS-es. Ouch.

In my own defense, since Joomla is a complex piece of software, I assumed what I thought was a missing feature was merely my own ignorance. I thought if I couldn't do something it was because I didn't know how to get there yet, not because it couldn't be done. Well.

Dear mister generic developer, please tell me what your software does not do. Upfront-like. Thank you.

end rant!

mouser:
Dear mister generic developer, please tell me what your software does not do. Upfront-like. Thank you.
--- End quote ---

great point -- we would all be better off if programs gave us some bullet points of what they don't do, or don't do well.

cranioscopical:
Okay guys.
Since you're in pursuit of transparency, mine doesn't tell you what it doesn't do.
So, if you run across ForgotMe.net it just might give you the blues.

rgdot:
Does Joomla use FCK? I have seen people having to resort to css word-wrap in other CMSes (/me not a Joomla user) whenever I have used a CMS I have switched off and done plain text.

tranglos:
great point -- we would all be better off if programs gave us some bullet points of what they don't do, or don't do well.
-mouser (May 11, 2009, 05:58 PM)
--- End quote ---

After I wrote that, it occurred to me that I've always done that with my apps, without quite verbalizing the principle. My KeyNote page still lists all its shortcomings rather prominently :)

Then again, it's the kind of defeatist personality that I have ;) In college I put out a few editions of a tiny one-person magazine of anarchist poetry and insane rantings. I was proud of the first issue and some people liked it. But for the second issue I couldn't muster enough insanity, I guess, it felt flat to me, soulless. Even the cover was uninspired. So I wrote about that on the cover. I wrote "Not as good as the previous edition", or something to that effect. That drove people round the bend! It was fun to watch. How are you going to promote something if the first thing you tell everyone is how bad that is? You can't exactly make headway like that, I know!

Well, it was only a rant.

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