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by stephenlf 182 days ago
Convention over configuration is a powerful idea. Most people don’t want to twiddle with configs. The power user approach is the way to go.
2 comments

Of course they don't, but since there is no magical way to make incompatible desires/workflow compatible, configuration is the only way out
I rarely need to configure something on my PCs, but rarely is not never, and when I do really need an option, it better be there. There's a gradient between unmaintainable multidimensional matrices of options and "one size ought to fit everyone" and both ends of it make the user miserable.
I think when it comes to config too people really underestimate its power.

On desktop, I often see people waste inordinate amounts of time on workflows that don't suit their use case. Little do they know - there's a config for that!

For example, I'll see people holding outlook like it's radioactive. They'll do the same busy-body work of manually pruning their inbox and sorting stuff and deleting stuff. The config can really help them there, but I think they either don't know it's capabilities or are scared of it.

> Most people don’t want to twiddle with configs.

Most people also don't care about the mothers of programmers. Until, you know, they have to send an SMS using exactly (particular) one of the 2 SIMs present in the phone and the 20 years old app will not let them.