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I would like to pose a question. I am not trying to be snarky, but it will probably come across that way.
I have put in more than 15 full-time person-months adding to calibre many of its complicated features. A partial list includes plugboards, the template language, most of the custom columns code, a lot of column coloring code, many searching enhancements, restrictions, and a lot of the sony device capabilities. I did these things because they were useful to me, or in some cases because the problems were interesting (custom template functions fall into this category, as do many template functions) or because the requester was a pleasant person.
The question: Why should I care about whether or not these features are usable by the "80%"? I think I should care about them working correctly, where in the end I define "correct", but after that what is in it for me?
Of course, Kovid could refuse to accept my changes, but why should he do that? The functionality is useful to some number of people. Refusing to integrate it would tell me to go away, and tell the "some number of people" that their needs don't matter. These are the people who engage with me, who work with me, and who in the end matter to me. I suspect that we could replace "me" with "us", but I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth.
Disclaimer: Kovid and I have argued several times about function discoverability and approachability. He is almost always more on the side of the 80% than I am.
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