[diffoscope] New feature discussion

[Chris Lamb]

Hi Jean-Romain,

Just replying quickly here as I don't have much bandwidth for this
right now, but I want to try and keep this thread alive.

> It would require either adding an option for each feature (which we
> don't really want), or having an overall "detail-level" option to
> manage several of those features.

Nod. To be honest, my instantaneous reaction to this kind of thing is
not entirely positive. This is not the usual opposition to 'options'
(although we do have too many) but there is something about a "detail
level" setting that seems to breach some kind of fundamental principle
about how I see diffoscope, also touching on the idea that defaults
really really matter and are criminally underrated.

I'm sure at one point in the future we will be able to write a
"philosophy" document for diffoscope that might make this all clearer,
but for now you may need to settle with the above hand-wavey
statement.

> I understand that it would add another layer of complexity, which
> might not be beneficial for the project.

Hah. I mean, maybe if we could remove some of the existing layers of
the complexity calculus would change…  :)

To be clear, I'm not a strict fundamentalist on the above and I remain
open to being convinced on specific exceptions, but it would need to
very strongly argued for and concretely demonstrated that the specific
advantages outweigh the general and pernicious disadvantages.


Best wishes,

--
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    ⬋   ⬊      Chris Lamb
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