Re: [precis] LetterDigits

[Andrew Sullivan <[e-mail]>]

On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 01:47:35PM -0600, Peter Saint-Andre wrote:
> Do our customers want or need that string class?

I'm slightly uncomfortable with this question.

The strongest message we keep getting is, "Aargh.  Can't you keep
these internationalization questions away from me?"  The _second_
strongest message we keep getting is, "Aargh.  I need that [disallowed
thing]."  

Our answer seems to be, increasingly, "Here is a framework for you to
subclass this giant set of trade-offs."  But that wasn't what the
customers wanted.  What they wanted was something that was easy and
also totally flexible.  We have to deliver a nicely-packaged gumdrop
of, "Can't have that.  Here's what you can have."  

It increasingly seems to me that we need to offer easy and flexible
classes; maybe Name and Free is it.  But I'd like to be able to offer
a SlightlyFree that doesn't present quite so many subclassing
opportunities.  The people who want precis don't want to have to
subclass.  Yes, I know this is inconsistent with part of what I was
arguing in Paris, but I thought about it more, and I am even less
settled than I was then.

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[e-mail]