On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 3:06 AM, David Painter <david.pain...@ntlworld.com>wrote:
> Not surprisingly the 640+ enhancement requests, going back to 2006, have > now been removed from the FRS site. > > I suppose it is easier to remove these 640+ requests than it is to provide > Flex customers with the functionality they have been saying, for years, > they want. > > Ah yes, enhancement requests. They are viewed by users as the panacea and by GOOD developers as an evil nightmare. Why? Because most enhancement requests are worse than useless. You see, we all like to solve problems. So when we have a problem, we solve it in our heads, and then issue a request for a solution rather than explain the problem we are trying to solve. As a result, the "feature request" rarely coordinates with the rest of the system to provide a uniform and cohesive system. I learned about this from a gentleman by the name of Steve Willens, the most brilliant programmer, engineer, AND CEO I ever worked with. In the early days of the commercial Internet, his dial-up access boxes were the overwhelming choice of the early Internet Service Providers. Why? Because they were simple and they worked ... and worked ... and worked. The software never broke. Even the beta test software he put out was more functional and reliable than the 2nd and 3rd generation release code by any of his competitors. Later his company acquired mine and I ended up running my company as a division within his. As a result I had to meet with him on a regular basis. Until then I thought I was one of the best but quickly learned that, next to him, I was a piker. Steve, with a simple question, could cut through all confusion and lay bare the meat of the problem. He was able to do that because he was always thinking about the system, not the feature. It was interesting because, before he bought my company, I was one of his customers. For years I had to opportunity to work with him on adding necessary functionality to remote access servers. (To this day *EVERYONE*in the world uses his system for remote access authentication, authorization, and accounting on the Internet.) The key question he would always ask was, "But what are you trying to do?" He never wanted to hear about how we wanted to solve a problem, he wanted to hear about the problem itself. As a result he would often combine various problem spaces and craft a much simpler system that would address several problems at once. The result may not end up looking like what the customer was asking for but it always solved the problem and usually did so simply and elegantly. The code always ended up being simpler and better compartmentalized so we encountered fewer bugs. As a result his devices were the only ones I could place in a remote, rural location where I couldn't get my finger on the reset button, without suffering from nightmares. So, I applaud the demise of the feature request. What Flex really needs are operating scenarios, not feature requests. Flex needs to ask, "What are you trying to do," not, "What do you want us to add?" The only way feature requests are useful as a kind of hieroglyphic that implies a problem the user wants to solve but then they have to guess at the actual nature of the problem. Unfortunately THAT requires that the person evaluating the feature request to be some kind of forensic expert, divining the characteristics of the problem "creature" from the request "turds" left lying around. And then, only after they have a real picture of the problem they are trying to solve, can Flex craft a real system. So, I don't see this as a problem. I see this as likely being a HUGE step in the right direction. Think about it. -- Brian Lloyd, WB6RQN/J79BPL 3191 Western Dr. Cameron Park, CA 95682 br...@lloyd.com +1.767.617.1365 (Dominica) +1.916.877.5067 (USA) _______________________________________________ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/
