Good ways to overcomplicate your code and slow down development

[Shari]

Jerry,

I wonder about this exact issue as well.  I have a program that gets 
feature requests continually.  There is no end to the number of 
features that can be added.  Not long ago I put out the mother of all 
updates, adding a very long list of feature requests.  The goal was 
to set this program aside for a good long while and work on something 
else.  It currently has more features than any of the competing 
programs in its price range.

The logic was that if I fulfilled the most common requests and a 
number of not so common ones, folks would be happy, more folks would 
buy, and the "I Want" syndrome would quiet down for awhile.

This did not work.  The "I Want" syndrome is alive and well, and now 
they are just requesting more unusual features.  Sales have not gone 
up.  They remain steady.  I expected an increase in sales for the 
increase in features.  Sales remain the same.  Feature requests still 
come in regularly.  So... I'm not sure there was really any benefit 
to adding all those features.  Except for some very nice reviews on 
the downoad sites.

And the downside is... It took me away from another project for the 
better part of a year.   A project that I expect will sell very well 
but which is still a long time away from final release.

Very frustrating!

Shari
Gypsy King Software

>Josh,
>
>I think the earlier versions of Constellation were actually quite 
>good, but I decided to accommodate every request (nearly) and ended 
>up with a product that was more difficult to use than intended.
>
>Taking too much user feedback to heart and not sticking to my 
>original design resulted in Constellation being very powerful for 
>the folks who used it from its genesis, but not as easy to break 
>into from scratch. Thus as it got more feature-laden and 
>preference-constrained, less people adopted it, but it did have a 
>faithful following of hundreds.
>
>Since Galaxy is now 2.6 Rev compatible, almost all Constellation 
>users have moved over to Galaxy which isn't as "in your face" with 
>its features as the latter day Constellation.
>
>Best,
>
>Jerry Daniels
>
>Tool makers for the 21st century
>http://www.daniels-mara.com
>

-- 
Gypsy King Software
Mac and Windows shareware games
http://www.gypsyware.com