Thu, 23 Mar 2006
Less Is More
Mark Jason Dominus (MJD) now has a weblog and he's using Blosxom to produce it. He says that when he says Blosxom sucks he's really complimenting Blosxom and it's less is more philosophy. I, on the other hand, am moving away from Blosxom and writing my own weblogging software. I'm having fun, but so far there's no light at the end of the tunnel. MJD says:
When I went looking for blog software back in January, I was conscious that I was looking for the Worse-is-Better software to an even greater degree than usual. In addition to all the reasons I have given above, I was acutely conscious of the fact that I didn't really know what I wanted the software to do. And if you don't know what you want, the Right Thing is the Wrong Thing, because you are not going to understand why it is the Right Thing. You need some experience to see the point of all the complexity and subtlety of the Right Thing, and that was experience I knew I did not have. If you are as ignorant as I was, your best bet is to get some experience with the simplest possible thing, and re-evaluate your requirements later on.
When I found Blosxom, I was delighted, because it seemed clear to me that it was Worse-is-Better through and through. And my experience has confirmed that. Blosxom is a triumph of Worse-is-Better. I think it could serve as a textbook example.
I'm not sure what the Right Thing is either, which is why it's taking me so long to write my code.
