bugs and xfce philosophy (Was: Re: menu editor does nothing?)

[Jasper Huijsmans]

Olivier Fourdan wrote:
...
> 
> BTW, it would be good if everybody could just focus on killing bugs and
> code cleanup instead of adding new features now.
> 

Aye. Is removing features still allowed? ;-) (Not that I have anything 
in mind).

> Please test your software, check for memory leaks, check for compilation
> warnings, check your makefiles (try make dist, make rpm, make distclean,
> etc. make sure all files are included in "make dist")
> 

make distcheck can be very useful in this respect. If you run it as 
non-root, don't forget to set DESTDIR to something you have write access 
to, since make distcheck will install and uninstall.

  $ DESTDIR=/home/me/check make distcheck

> Don't be affraid of removing $HOME/.xfce4 and look for discrepancy
> between default settings and actual values, etc.
> 
> Be assured that anything known to be unstable won't be part of the
> release of 4.2 if ever.
> 
> As a reminder, the goal of xfce is to keep things simple, for the users
> and for developpers. I really prefer simple, maintainable and clean code
> over a full feature bloated buggy code.
> 

And unfortunately, with the limited resources we have, it's actually 
better to err on the developer side than to add difficult to maintain 
code that eases the lives of the user a little. IMNSHO.

> Also, you don't have to satisfy every user request. Keep the number of
> user options as low as possible. Make choice, use them as default, and
> get ready to argue when users disagree.
> 

And don't even think of arguing about this one! There are hundreds of 
ways to interact with a computer. Xfce should offer one coherent user 
experience, not try to please everyone.

cheers,
	Jasper