On Convergance.

by Charles Miller on July 22, 2003

Alan pointed me to Hacknot, a software engineering blog. This line from The Soporific Manifesto stood out:

Q: What can you brush your teeth with, sit on, and telephone people with?
A: A toothbrush, a chair and a telephone.

I can't agree more. Attempting to shoe-horn unrelated functionality into a single application just creates a confusing and harder-to-use app. This, for example, is why the Mozilla project have recently broken their web browser and email software into separate applications. “What can you browse web pages with and send email with? A: Firebird and Thunderbird.”

(I disagree about Unfinished Sympathy, though. While it is a very good pop song, it's probably beaten in the ‘best pop song of all times’ stakes by Blur's For Tomorrow, or perhaps even Elliot Smith's Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands.)

(Update: And how could I have forgotten Sometimes, by James?)

Previously: The Fifteen Minute Test

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