[smakz]

Very good points. Reminds me of this quote:

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

It does seem to be a major problem with a lot of Google's latest inventions - they try to do too many things at once, and solve too many problems for too many people. Wave as a technology proved to be extremely useful in some certain circles, including corporate collaboration. I would wager if they marketed as a sharepoint competitor and increased the integration with google docs, it could potentially have been a money maker while giving more credibility to Google Docs.

Similar situations are going on right now with Google Buzz and even Google Mail, the execution of the "make phone calls from your mail box" seems to leave a lot to be desired. It's a feature that tries to jump out at you and grab your attention as if saying "Hey look at this, we invented something new" when really it should be almost invisible until you need to use it.

[kenjackson]

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."

Doesn't this imply that _nothing_ is always perfection. The quote just seems to be flat out wrong.

While maybe not as elegant, but wouldn't it be better said as "Perfection is achieved, not where is nothing more to add, but when there is neither more to add nor anything to take away".

Maybe the quote has a proceeding sentence that makes it clear.

[barrkel]

The assumption is that you're talking about some thing - design, work of art, whatever - which is accomplishing some goal. The perfection lies in removing extraneous elements without stopping it from achieving the goal. Nothing, by itself, doesn't achieve much.

[kenjackson]

Still, even your explanation is wrong. There are obviously times when adding something is required. If a car with no engine, I need to add one. I can't simply remove a wheel.

[daleharvey]

as he already said, it has to accomplish some goal, if your goal is for your car to drive, it needs an engine.

[kenjackson]

OK, put a lawnmower engine in a Hummer... Now this simply becomes an exercise in requirements gathering. Because your retort will be the goal is this accerlation curve, this torque curver, this gas mileage, etc....

And this presumes that the requirements lead to perfection. What is the goal of the Mona Lisa or Dante's Inferno? Could Micaelangelo have done less to satisfy the requirements for the Creation of Adam?

Can you point to any value in that quote?

And let me extend my last question. How many things can you list that would be perfect merely by removing things? I don't think there are many. I suspect most things, that even accomplish a goal, lack perfection due to an array of things, not simply due to having too much of anything.

[tkahn6]

http://google.com/ vs http://yahoo.com/

[ori_b]

"extraneous" is the key word there. You seem to have missed it.

[kenjackson]

In other words "the key to perfection is to take a perfect item and remove things that cause it to no longer be perfect". Clearly I'm the only person who thinks this is just flat out dumb. Why would you ever say that to someone except to irk them?

That's like saying the key to being correct is to take your correct statement and not put the word "not" in front of it.

So yes, if you have perfection, actions that lead away from it are problematic. I find it idiotic that this would bear repeating, but I guess I have a low threshold for this type of thing.

[smakz]

A Witty Phrase Proves Nothing

- Voltaire

The point of the quote (to me at least) was to be taken more to inspire you to rethink perfection then to be taken literally at face value.

[kenjackson]

The problem I have with the quote is that it makes me think he took away too many words. To make the quote perfect, he needs to add some words. And maybe he realized that too, but would be a hypocrite if he did so. :-)

[mreid]

> Maybe the quote has a proceeding sentence that makes it clear.

Let me guess, you're an engineer?