Worse Is Better (Re: Lucene integration (Re: Nudge to release now))

[Andreas Kuckartz <A....@ping.de>]

Andreas Hartmann:

> > You mean this one: "Bad code makes good communities" ?
> >
> > Sorry, but I strongly doubt that deliberately releasing broken core features
> > will attract new developers or users...
>
> Certainly it won't attract users, but I'm not sure about
> developers. Tim sounded like he has enough experience
> with open source development to judge the situation
> correctly, and I have heard the same opinion from other
> (doubtless experienced) developers. I have no idea about
> statistics etc. to prove this statement.

That seems to be related to the "Worse Is Better" approach described with dismay
by Richard P. Gabriel. (See http://www.dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html)

In any case it is an interesting issue. I will try to dig up some material.

Andreas


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Re: Worse Is Better (Re: Lucene integration (Re: Nudge to release now))

[Andreas Kuckartz <A....@ping.de>]

Tim Larson wrote:

> There are exceptions, but usually the choice is between perfection and
> irrelevance versus admitting and releasing imperfection that can grow
> over time toward being well adapted and used by many people.

If I were to accept the argument (and I am not sure I do) I would point out that
Lenya is such an "exception". In the past (after 1.0 was released) people have
turned away from it not because it was perfect and polished but because they
were not even able to get it to run - and if they were they stumbled upon
serious errors. In other words: a certain minimum of quality is required to be
able to grow a community arround it.

That has improved a *lot* but at the moment there still are a small number of
problems which - in my opinion - should either be hidden (by disabling features)
or resolved or clearly pointed out to users before 1.2 is released (and
announced to the world !).

And when these problems are resolved and 1.2 is released there still is a lot to
polish and implement: at the moment Bugzilla contains 137 entries.

Andreas


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Re: Worse Is Better (Re: Lucene integration (Re: Nudge to release now))

[Tim Larson <ti...@keow.org>]

On Wed, Jun 02, 2004 at 04:07:16PM +0200, Andreas Kuckartz wrote:
> Andreas Hartmann:
> 
> > > You mean this one: "Bad code makes good communities" ?
> > >
> > > Sorry, but I strongly doubt that deliberately releasing broken core features
> > > will attract new developers or users...
> >
> > Certainly it won't attract users, but I'm not sure about
> > developers. Tim sounded like he has enough experience
> > with open source development to judge the situation
> > correctly, and I have heard the same opinion from other
> > (doubtless experienced) developers. I have no idea about
> > statistics etc. to prove this statement.
> 
> That seems to be related to the "Worse Is Better" approach described with dismay
> by Richard P. Gabriel. (See http://www.dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html)
> 
> In any case it is an interesting issue. I will try to dig up some material.
> 
> Andreas

Yes, this is the same idea expressed in other words.  Polished designs
often hit the market later than unpolished implementations, giving the
unfinished implementations a chance to grow a development community,
mold/flex to the actual needs of the community (rather than to planned
or imagined needs), and generally set down solid roots that make it
very difficult for the much-delayed competing polished implementations
to gain significant marketshare.

There are exceptions, but usually the choice is between perfection and
irrelevance versus admitting and releasing imperfection that can grow
over time toward being well adapted and used by many people.

--Tim Larson

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