[software] Design Decisions

[xavier dutoit]

> There's a vast difference between supporting complexity and supporting
> plugins.  You can add a ticket sales module to an existing fundraising tool
> fairly easily.  You can't add umbrella organization support without changing
> the main data tables, and forcing a refactor of large parts of the
> application.  This is what I ran into when I started tinkering with CiviCRM.

On that topic, it's been several improvements and now it deals with
nesting (hierarchy) for groups
and more is on the pipe
http://civicrm.org/node/469

> Reducing complexity is also hard, as I found out playing with other
> applications.

This is an issue too in CiviCRM, for instance getting rid of fields
you don't need on a specific NGO, eg a SIC code or the state. This is
managable via custom templates easily, but a bit harder to maintain.

X+