Opinionated vs Generative

A big tool-design issue is juggling whether/how to be Opinionated vs Generative.

See related Andy Matuschak's categories of enabling environment, enacted experience, and authored environment at (2020-02-20) Matuschak On Primer.

Also, this smells similar to distinguishing a Framework from a Pattern Language. (Though less certain about that, those might become self-referential definition-games.)

• https://twitter.com/BillSeitz/status/1531320822102630400
• https://twitter.com/BillSeitz/status/1548720968125890560

Also: Choose your Medium, Game Playing, Real Life

One model is to be opinionated at the low-level platform decisions (grain, composability), to support generative experiences. Then allow multiple opinionated templates/wizards/flows to be built/composed on top of it.

Another tactic: intelligent defaults