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ref: e1f905cd3c481d561f2faf8c80e800cffe4d2035
parent: 6d6375349747e1870f9c74bc950bfd25b6bb2b51
author: Simon Howard <fraggle@soulsphere.org>
date: Mon Jan 19 18:29:53 EST 2015

PHILOSOPHY: Expand discussion on minimalism.

More self-indulgent ramblings about philosophy of software design.

--- a/PHILOSOPHY
+++ b/PHILOSOPHY
@@ -155,15 +155,8 @@
 other hand, painstakingly emulating Vanilla Doom by starting with no
 sound or music by default is not helpful to anyone.
 
-== Other philosophical aspects ==
+== Minimalism ==
 
-Chocolate Doom aims for maximal portability. That includes running on
-many different CPUs, different operating systems and different devices
-(ie. not just a desktop machine with a keyboard and mouse).
-
-Chocolate Doom is and will always remain Free Software. It will never
-include code that is not compatible with the GNU GPL.
-
 Chocolate Doom aims to be minimalist and straightforward to configure;
 in particular, the setup tool should have a sane interface. Part of
 the inspiration for Chocolate Doom came from Boom's complicated maze
@@ -179,6 +172,29 @@
 the setup tool. The assumption is that if you care enough about those
 obscure features, editing a configuration file by hand should not be a
 huge problem for you.
+
+Also inspirational was the README file from Havoc's Metacity window
+manager, where the list of features begins:
+
+  Boring window manager for the adult in you. Many window managers
+  are like Marshmallow Froot Loops; Metacity is like Cheerios.
+
+I'd like to think that Chocolate Doom's philosophy towards features is
+similar. The idea is for a source port that is boring. I find the best
+software - both proprietary and open source - is software that is
+"egoless": it does a job well without pretentions about its importance
+or delusions of grandeur. A couple of other notable examples of
+software that I feel embody this spirit of design in a beautiful way
+are Marco Pesenti Gritti's Epiphany web browser and Evince PDF viewer.
+
+== Other philosophical aspects ==
+
+Chocolate Doom aims for maximal portability. That includes running on
+many different CPUs, different operating systems and different devices
+(ie. not just a desktop machine with a keyboard and mouse).
+
+Chocolate Doom is and will always remain Free Software. It will never
+include code that is not compatible with the GNU GPL.
 
 # vim: tw=70