As a software developer, I've put off adding more features into my products for several years now. All because I feared introducing features will make my users think it's "bloated", "violating the Unix philosophy", etc.
But over the years, I've found that most users actually want more features. Most of them want more business value. And that there is value in having features integrated/builtin instead of external.
When I tell people "no, we don't do that, but you can use that other tool in combination with mine" most of them are like "what? I have to use TWO tools"? The "simple tool that does one thing" philosophy mostly appeals to a small number of hardcore nerds, but the rest of the world wants more features, more integration. They don't want theoretic purity.
The fact that I didn't add features and only focused on bug fixes actually hurted the reputation of my software in the grand scheme of things. So yeah, I'll be adding more features from now on.
Counter example? I wish Adium would add more features. It's been stagnant for years and the only reason why I'm still using it is because there's nothing better.
For example, MSN file transfers have always been broken. They never managed to fix that before MSN's shutdown.
Google Talk file transfers are similarly broken.
No support for Skype.
No support for webcams.
All these issues have been open for years. They only introduce basic bug fixes but not much else.
As a software developer, I've put off adding more features into my products for several years now. All because I feared introducing features will make my users think it's "bloated", "violating the Unix philosophy", etc.
But over the years, I've found that most users actually want more features. Most of them want more business value. And that there is value in having features integrated/builtin instead of external.
When I tell people "no, we don't do that, but you can use that other tool in combination with mine" most of them are like "what? I have to use TWO tools"? The "simple tool that does one thing" philosophy mostly appeals to a small number of hardcore nerds, but the rest of the world wants more features, more integration. They don't want theoretic purity.
The fact that I didn't add features and only focused on bug fixes actually hurted the reputation of my software in the grand scheme of things. So yeah, I'll be adding more features from now on.