80 percent by convention

In an interview published recently by eWeek, David Hansson (creator of Ruby on Rails) made a statement, which wonderfully summarizes my ideas on the way APIs, libraries and frameworks should be designed. It can also be considered an addition to my previous post – I was trying to say the same thing, but was unable to put it into such an elegant phrasing:

“As long as you do what most people want to do most of the time, you get a free ride. No configuration necessary. So get the 80 percent by convention, tailor the last 20 percent by hand.”

I definitely should try Ruby on Rails: it is always a great pleasure to use a tool when you and the tool’s designer share the same ideas.