Re: ::scr Internet Explorer - Danger in numbers?

[Simon Wistow <simon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Mar 06, 2002 at 11:44:53PM +0000, Ash Argent-Katwala said:
> In short if you keep the complexity down, then you have a better shot at
> explaining it to the user, and a far better chance that you'll be able to
> keep your eye on what the hell you are doing. Of course code that fits
> entirely in some smart coder's head doesn't often solve the grand plans we
> have. A lot of the rest of software engineering seems to geared around
> not throwing everything you had away when you go past that limit.

This is really interesting, to me anyway. 

I've argued in the past that Opensource is Just Another Software
Methodology [tm] that is utterly shite for any applications that aren't
very simple.

But that's another argument. The upshot of this would be that
OpenSourcde is, once again, a viable monopoly slayer. Especially since
you could replace the closed bits of a monopoly one component at a time.

I've also frothed at the mouth many times about document centric
interfaces - ones that have a document as the, err, center and then ave
lots of small tools acting on them.

The advantages being that you can use whatever small tool you happen
like and they're very simple. 

For the user it means that there's customisability with new components
being easy to use. For the programmer it means that it's easy to program
(because it's small), quick to prototype (because half the functionality
will already be there) and, more importantly, for this discussion
anyway, since it's small, it's easy to do a security audit.

The downside is that there could be inconsistent interfaces but with
some Interface Guidelines a la Apple that shouldn't be much of a
problem.






-- 
: fast, cheap and out of control