[keycloak-dev] vision vs. infinite configurability

[Stian Thorgersen]

+1000

We shouldn't just blindly throw in new features, now matter how small they are. Most mature projects out there probably have more undocumented and unused features than they have documented and used.

Having a rule that all features should be documented and tested goes some way to prevent this. If you can't be asked to document and test something, chances are we don't need it!

Besides that, I'm a strong believer in "the team knows best" so most things, no matter how small they are, should be mentioned on the mailing list IMO.

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Bill Burke" <bburke at redhat.com>
> To: keycloak-dev at lists.jboss.org
> Sent: Friday, 5 December, 2014 2:57:15 PM
> Subject: [keycloak-dev] vision vs. infinite configurability
> 
> Users want Keycloak to work like their existing solutions.  Users have
> peculiar use cases they need to solve.  As engineers, we want to satisfy
> our customer's needs so we add option after option.
> 
> This worries me...
> 
> We have to constantly think about the Keycloak "vision".  We need to
> continually think about how users *should* use Keycloak rather than how
> they want to use it.  Every time we add a new configuration option to
> keycloak we add complexity.  We make keycloak harder to understand and
> use.  We need to keep this in mind as we go forward over the next few
> months.   When customers ask for a new feature we need to ask them or think:
> 
> * Is there an existing way to do this?
> * Should we allow this option?
> * Is there a better way to solve the customer's need?
> 
> A big one is: Can we enforce specify policies to make Keycloak easier to
> configure?  For example, as a SAML IDP, we can say, sorry, but any SP
> needs to be able to handle signed saml documets.  we don't need to
> provide the config switch to not sign a document.  Get what I mean?
> 
> BTW, this is why I get so pissy whenever you guys want to add another
> SPI or config switch.  I know how these types of things snowball as a
> project ages.  You can collapse under the weight of them.  Having a
> "vision" helps tremendously as you tell users how they should be doing
> security rather than just doing whatever they want.
> 
> --
> Bill Burke
> JBoss, a division of Red Hat
> http://bill.burkecentral.com
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