Neither word is ideal in it’s definition of pre-packaged functionality, but lately I’ve seen far too many people confuse the two as interchangeable. It’s not just a case of semantics either, it’s a statement of what we can aim to achieve against public perception.
Purely from a software development viewpoint we work on the assumption of the following definitions.
Basic.
- Features needed to make the software function at a base level.
Standard
- Features automatically considered to be included by users, usually based on market perception.
These are very key differences, and need to be explained and used to manage expectations of your user-base. The more features that people expect as standard, the more you have to detail where the line in the sand exists. Good project management, planning, scoping, documentation and communication make this job a lot easier. Without it, users can start to judge your product based on their own perception of expectations rather than the groundwork you have laid out.
Take WordPress as an example:
- WordPress’ basic functionality is to add/edit/delete/show blog posts, allow comments from users.
- WordPress’ standard functionality these days would be smilies, a WYSIWYG editor and Avatars.
Note the difference. Your blog would work as described without the standard functionality, but would not without the basic functionality. It’s a key key difference that people miss out on, and it very quickly leads to scope creep.
AutoMattic set an amazing precedent with WordPress, if not all of their home grown products. They decided that anything that wasn’t purely basic functionality would be developed as a plugin, and adapted into the core of their product if and only if the basic/standard divide had moved considerably. Almost 30 releases of WordPress and 6 years later we’re dealing with a much larger beast than before, and I’m afraid many people that are new to WordPress or Automattic products in the last 2 years will have missed out on this key component in its development.
Its another great example where being able to don the Project Management and Business Analyst roles would make a big difference to an open source project; but this sort of mental scope creep is something we should all be aware of and shoot it down whenever possible.
