Can An Application Reach Perfection?

There’s no such thing as a perfect application…or so they say. That’s why we version, and improve, and add features, and innovate. Nothing is ever perfect.

Or is it?

I started thinking about this when I started looking at some of my code for my blog. I’ve written a custom blogging application, and I’ve written it exactly how I like it. I’ve been meaning to rewrite it to incorporate all I’ve learned in the last year. But in terms of features, I believe it has arrived.

Certainly it’s not perfect, by any stretch, because it isn’t as efficient, as organized, as user-friendly as it could be. But it works. It satisfies. And, I’ve added no new features in over four months – a record, considering that when I first built it I made about 200 revisions in two weeks.

I think that’s the point at which an application reaches perfection – when you don’t want to add anything else. Though the application or its peripherals may evolve, when you no longer need to edit the application to make it easier to use, you’ve arrived.

Then the application is perfect.

Brandon Savage is the author of Mastering Object Oriented PHP and Practical Design Patterns in PHP

Andrei (@andreisavu) wrote at 2/26/2009 3:43 am:

perfect is too much, i would say just good enough

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