Re: [math] Limits on StatUtil content (was Re: [math] design patterns ...)

[Al Chou <ho...@yahoo.com>]

--- "Mark R. Diggory" <md...@latte.harvard.edu> wrote:
> Phil Steitz wrote:
> >> I keep reminding myself, we are the developers, there is always room 
> >> for refactoring in the future. If there becomes a clear hindrance 
> >> with the use of static methods, then we can refactor them into a 
> >> class that needs to be instantiated. This is not too difficult to 
> >> accomplish.
> >>
> > Not for us, maybe, but it could be a real pain for the users who have 
> > written code using the static methods directly. We also need to keep 
> > reminding ourselves that what we are developing is a library for 
> > others to use.  Refactoring public interfaces post release is a slow 
> > and painful process. Given that MathUtils and StatUtils are going to 
> > be public, we need to be committed to supporting the static methods 
> > that they will expose.  
> 
> Now thats a very strong point,
> 
> A cautious side note: Its very difficult to design a product for a 
> "hypothetical future user", I've been trying to do this for the last 3 
> years, its very very difficult, and I'm constantly "pulling in the 
> reigns", to stop overdevelopment that is based on "bad assumptions" 
> about what this hypothetical user-base is going to want. The user is, 
> infact, part of the Open Source development process. This is where 
> philosphies like, "Release early, Release often" become benificial. The 
> user input is really needed to help drive the development direction 
> properly.

I agree we need real user input to help guide the design, just so long as we
don't let ourselves be completely constrained by what the initial small user
base wants/likes (the way Unix make did when it had 10 users).  I think if we
warn alpha/beta users that public interfaces are subject to change, we may be
OK.


Al

=====
Albert Davidson Chou

    Get answers to Mac questions at http://www.Mac-Mgrs.org/ .

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