Mark Ganson wrote:
I like Jonathan's test for a new feature: the burden should be upon
those who don't want it to show why it shouldn't be added rather than
upon the ones who want it to justify why it should be added.
But the binsize question will ALWAYS come up, so those who think it
shouldn't be added just say "Oh, binsize" then it's back to the people
who say it should be adding having to justify its binsize cost anyway.
So why not just start out with them justifying the binsize cost in the
first place? It's as simple as saying "the largest binsize increase for
this patch is on X target and is Y kilobytes. Considering this feature
allows Z to be done, which was impossible before but necessary when
using the player in this common situation, I feel it's easily worth the
tiny increase" after which everyone can look at the numbers, and whether
they feel it's that commonly usable. Then the person justifying it could
say "well if we hard code it without a setting, and pick a small value
so minimal bin is used, it only decreases the total bin use by X bytes,
so if we have the feature at all it may as well be a setting because not
having it as a setting doesn't offer a realistic savings." Or, y'know, a
similar thing. Trying to make sure to present any negatives with the
positives up front, instead of complaining every time people DO mention
negatives, or dismissing those negatives by saying "I think binsize
doesn't matter, so quite complaining to me about it."
As a note, Mark, you may not be aware but you're top posting which is
something we ask users not to do on our lists.
