The simplest solution that works

I've never known a Dave Thomas I didn't like. Both the wheel builder and the pragmatic guru. The latter just announced his company's new Wishlist 3.0 (or that's what I would have called it).

... we wanted to create a kind of wish list feature for our shiny new online store. It would be a system that would allow our readers tell their non-technical relatives and friends the titles that they'd love to see under the tree.

So I got to planning. We've got all the power we need to create something special. I sketched out the mother of all wish lists, with referral logic, automated suggestions based on other people's wish lists, privacy settings, e-mail and web fulfillment, and so on and so on. It was to be a work of art.

Then, for once, I stopped to think.

Then they created a PDF with their titles on it so people could print it out and give it to anyone. Any good programmer can create an application; it takes a great one to realize that sometimes it isn't necessary.