Comment by ablob
3 months ago
Surprise is also based on convention. What could be surprising to you might be just a stroll in the park for others. In Japan people would be surprised to see others wearing shoes in a house while it's perfectly normal for people of other countries. Reading the manual is something to prevent surprises and only takes one sentence to explain. I'd go for that any day of the week!
> ... a well designed system wouldn’t do this. ...
A well designed system would be able to explain their decisions and document that somewhere. Perhaps in the manual.
A well-documented system would explain all decisions. A well-designed system would enable the user to learn a small set of principles and apply them in adjacent areas successfully without reference to documementation.
As you say, I am used to checking the docs in Linux. It’s the convention that no convention shall be assumed. Is that good design?