[hasenj]

> but its not because it did more than one thing, it is because it didn't do them well.

In general I agree with your line of thinking, but I will nitpick on this particular sentence (or the way it's phrased) and say: the whole idea of doing only one thing is that if you try to do more than one thing, you will definitely not do them all well.

I do agree with you though. The "many things" that postgresql does are all actually just one thing: database system.

Yea some people could argue that under the cover it's many different things, but the whole idea is about focus, not about counting features. There are always multiple aspects to the "one thing" (whatever your one thing happens to be). Doing the one thing well means tackling all of these aspects.

The reason you can't do multiple things well is that each one of the multiple things you want to do will in itself have many aspects, and your focus will be fragmented trying to tackle too many things with very limited resources.

[paulddraper]

What if something if really good at being a website?

[paublyrne]

Or really good at being a platform.