in reply to Design opinion, configuration inheritance

I'm very suspicious when someone says "because it is bad design" and then doesn't follow that up with specifics on why it is a bad design. (Is it a bad user design? A bad programming design? Is the person that you're talking to worried about being confused by the flexibility? Worried about users making a mess of things? Worried that users will be confused? Will it force you to write a lot of very generic code when you could write something simple?) If I know how the other person thinks it is bad, then I can form my own impression of whether I agree. (Sometimes you have to live with decisions that you disagree with.) Eventually my trained impressions may become useful opinions.

Depending on specifics that you haven't given us, I could wind up choosing either design. I personally like providing a more generic design with the hope that I can get people to solve their own problems using the flexibility. That isn't always workable in the real world. I enumerated a few of the possible reasons above in my list of reasons that someone might think that a bad design.

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Re^2: Design opinion, configuration inheritance
by naChoZ (Curate) on Apr 20, 2005 at 00:23 UTC

    > I'm very suspicious when someone says "because it is bad
    > design" and then doesn't follow that up with specifics on
    > why it is a bad design. (Is it a bad user design? A bad
    > programming design? Is the person that you're talking to
    > worried about being confused by the flexibility? Worried
    > about users making a mess of things? Worried that users
    > will be confused? Will it force you to write a lot of very
    > generic code when you could write something simple?) If I
    > know how the other person thinks it is bad, then I can
    > form my own impression of whether I agree. (Sometimes you
    > have to live with decisions that you disagree with.)
    > Eventually my trained impressions may become useful
    > opinions.

    Yes, I get suspicious myself, which was one of the reasons I thought I'd get some opinion here. As to your questions, I'd say the last two apply, confusion from the flexibility and user's making a mess of things. (Especially the latter. You should get a load of the current setup.)

    --
    "This alcoholism thing, I think it's just clever propaganda produced by people who want you to buy more bottled water." -- pedestrianwolf

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