"Good software knows when to stop, look at ls!"
ls: usage: ls [-@ABCFGHILOPRSTUWXabcdefghiklmnopqrstuvwxy1%,] [--color=when] [-D format] [file ...]
I don't think it knew when to stop.
Good software knows when to stop
171–180 of 304 posts
Re: Good software knows when to stop
#172> Ignore feature requests — don't build what users ask for; understand the underlying problem instead not quite in the same area, but this advice reminds me of blizzard and world of warcraft. for years and years, people requested a "classic" WoW (for non-players, the classic version is an almost bug-for-bug copy of the original 2004-2005 version of the game). for years and years, the reply from blizzard was "you thin…
The irony of your WoW example is that "retail" WoW basically evolved by Blizzard adding features in response to player feedback where each step when viewed individually seemed reasonable. And eventually the situation got so "bad" that players realized they actually didn't want any of this (a lot of people have lengthy commentaries on how more in-game friction somehow makes the game better), and then the demand for Cl…
>WoW basically evolved by Blizzard adding features in response to player feedback
blizzard is notorious for not responding to player feedback, as my original comment serves as just one example of, so i am not sure where you are getting this idea from. there is probably a super compilation somewhere of ion telling the player base that they are wrong about wanting X.
(to be fair to blizzard, they have been better at listening to feedback in the last ~2 years, but that is a very recent change.)
>and then the demand for Classic actually became overwhelming
this is the point in time where my comment starts. demand for classic became overwhelming, and yet they ignored it for years, while telling everyone "no, you are wrong, you do not want classic".
this is the key part: blizzard eventually released classic, and publicly admitted "we should have listened to you guys. you really did want classic.". turns out the player base did actually know what they want.
>And even so, I'm not sure Classic consistently has more players than Retail.
i am not sure what the relevance of this is.
Re: Good software knows when to stop
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
And people liked that model, see the huge backlash when Adobe went subscription for creative suite. I do wedding photography as a side hustle, I upgrade my camera maybe once every ~7 years. Cameras have largely been good enough since 2016 and the 5D Mark IV. I have a pair of R6 mk II that I'll probably hold onto for the next 10 years. Point being, Lightroom has more or less been feature complete for me for a very, ve…
> And people liked that model, see the huge backlash when Adobe went subscription for creative suite. That backlash was short lived. Adobe went from $4.4 billion in revenue in 2021 to $23.7 billion. It used to cost $2500 for the "master collection". Now it's $50 a month. I was one of those people that disliked switching to subscription. I stayed on CS6 for years. I'm also only a relatively casual user though. I once…
It appears to be $69.99 per month with an annual contract, $104.99 per month if month-to-month. But the point of subscription-based things is to make you forget and not notice the price increases.
Re: Good software knows when to stop
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
> People do not want "classic": people want a "good" game that has some specific characteristics as long as those "specific characteristics" are literally and exactly what classic wow is, sure.
Kinda. I think people want "classic WoW" because they aren't able to articulate what, exactly, would need to change with WoW to make them happy again. But they can pretty easily paint to the old version and say "I liked that, bring that back". I think it's plausible that you could (with time and effort) design something that isn't the same as classic WoW while keeping the players happy.
>I think it's plausible that you could (with time and effort) design something that isn't the same as classic WoW while keeping the players happy.
blizzard tried to do this with the retail version for literal years while people kept saying "please, i just want classic wow."
now, if you mean that it is plausible that those same people would play a different non-wow mmorpg that shared some aspects of classic wow, sure. but that is drifting pretty far from my original point.
Re: Good software knows when to stop
#175> Ignore feature requests — don't build what users ask for; understand the underlying problem instead not quite in the same area, but this advice reminds me of blizzard and world of warcraft. for years and years, people requested a "classic" WoW (for non-players, the classic version is an almost bug-for-bug copy of the original 2004-2005 version of the game). for years and years, the reply from blizzard was "you thin…
Asking for WoW Classic isn't a feature request, that's asking for an entire game. People asking for it want to go back to how WoW was a decade+ earlier. The issue about "ignore feature requests" is talking about features for the existing software that distract from the overall goal/purpose of the software.
Re: Good software knows when to stop
#176I think Signal (the messenger) is an interesting example: by being free, open source, and privacy centered, there's automatically no room for ads and it's difficult to monetize. Also they have to be very careful adding new features for security reasons. The result: very few features. Which is exactly what I want.
Yet it has one feature I love (schedule send) which WhatsApp doesn't have, despite adding countless features I do not like or actively avoid (AI, channels)
Re: Good software knows when to stop
#177At first glance, the thread title made me think this was going to be about the halting problem.
Re: Good software knows when to stop
#178[deleted]
Re: Good software knows when to stop
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yea, good old days :) The catch was that old boxed software eventually breaks on new OS versions or devices. However, SaaS has the potential to "freeze" features while remaining functional 20+ years down the road. Behind the scenes, developers can update server dependencies and push minor fixes to ensure compatibility with new browsers and screen sizes. From the end-user's perspective, the product remains unchanged a…
My experience is actually the opposite. In the old days there was no expection when and if users would upgrade anything , so vendors had to take extra care to ensure compatibility or they would lose business. People in a single office could be running 6 different versions of Microsoft Office, and the same file had to be viewable and editable on all of them. A company could decide to upgrade to Office 2010 but stay on…
Which resulted in businesses holding on to extremely old software and OSs because migration to the latest system was expensive and difficult. Now it's effortless.
Re: Good software knows when to stop
#180Stardew Valley is a great example of this, and that more is not always better. Specifically he rolled out a "cave" system with procedural dungeon generation where players could mine through walls and other advanced systems, then undid all of it and ended with ~30 static layouts and very simplistic interactions. The entire game feels like a demonstration that simple, predictable and repeatable interactions with softwa…
Stardew is an example of the opposite though? The dev has been loading more and more content via updates for 10 years now. There's so much late game content that would take a very long time to play all of. People are waiting for the devs new game to come out but he is still working on Stardew.