A quick side note on software development (Was: X11 bashing)

[Steve Croft]

amolitor at eagle.wesleyan.edu writes:
>Software development cycles should not proceed as: add every concievable
>feature, then tune. Something more like: get something minimally useful,
>tune, then see if something more is needed. If not, STOP. If more
>features are needed, add them, and re-tune.

Software development consists of determining your needs and programming
a complete solution for it.  If you only take into consideration a minimal
set of requirements at first, then you may be doomed when you try to
add items later and find basic design conflicts.  There are multiple
examples of software which started out as small, simple designs which
grew very complex when it was decided that "features are needed, add
them, and re-tune".

Let me just state again that if your analysis determines a set of features
are needed, you better take them all into consideration during your
design phase.  You don't have to implement all the features, but you
better consider them in your design...

Steve Croft
stevec at water.ca.gov
(a more reliable email address than above)