Different styles but equivalent functionality

When I first released TurboGears, I got a lot of questions about why I chose package X instead of package Y. When you’re talking about any sufficiently mature set of packages, trying to answer a question like that is an invitation to an endless discussion. I refer to that as the “emacs vs. vi” debate, since that’s the example that’s been with us for a long time. I’m all ears when one solution is demonstrably better for a task than another, but more often than not it’s a six-of-one, half-dozen-of-another sort of deal.

So, I shouldn’t be too surprised that a thread I started yesterday about a triviality would result in more than 50 messages from more than 30 people. I could’ve just flipped a coin, I guess 🙂

Update: Hey! I learned something new from this thread. I learned about bike shed painting. Neat.