Proper threading? (technical aspects)

[Jonathan B. Bayer]

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On Fri, 11 Jun 1999 23:34:08 +0100, Dr. Martin R. Hadam wrote:

>>100% *WRONG*.
>>IF YOU CHANGE THE ALGORITHM YOU NEED TO MAKE IT AN OPTION ELSE PEOPLE WILL
>>COMPLAIN.  BY MAKING IT AN OPTION, WHICH IS A REQUIREMENT, YOU MUST ALSO
>>CHANGE THE CONFIGURATION FILE.  THAT MEANS A CHANGE TO FOLDER.INI WHICH, IN
>>TURN, BREAKS COMPATIBILITY.  
>
> Despite the capitalization (which makes it difficult to read) you keep
>introducing features which I never asked for. 
>
>>    A leads to B leads to C.  Please attempt to follow along!
>
> (I am... ) which most naturally leads to *your* conclusions. 
>
> My issue was only to change the current sort algorithm to something
>better. This may leave some users behind yet is compatible across the
>board and a significant improvement (imo). You may dispute the
>improvement, but you'll have a hard time demonstrating that it will
>break compatibility with the Windows (or older OS/2) version(s). 


Sorry doctor, your prescription is wrong.  It is wrong to change the
functioning of a piece of software which is working well and which many
current users are satisfied with just to make some users happy.  You DO
need to make it optional, in order to keep your current customers
happy.  Ignoring Microsoft (who seems to make their own rules) if a
company got a reputation for constantly changing the way things work
then they would not get any recommendations  or referrals.  They would
be referred to as "that company which keeps changing things".  Users
don't like change.  Witness how many people are still using Netscape 2
& 3.  Once you make it optional, you do need some way to change the
configuration file.  While I have, in the past, done things like this
(and added code to upgrade the configuration file), the coding was a
mess and needed to be constantly maintained as more and more options
are added.

JBB
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