This is a big idea. In short however: Determining “the best” software solution is difficult. There are so many different competing products. Everyone has her own opinion on how to solve these issues and these opinions get wrapped up in this software.

It can’t just be all opinion, however. There must be some things that objectively do a better job at solving a problem. Speed and flexibility come mind as being “objective goods” in software but these are hard to accurately measure. Flexibility especially is open to interpretation, possibly. This is why, maybe, the key thing to win some ground is to attempt to identify some key features that seem to be objective goods.

For instance, when evaluating a note taking app, multi-device syncing and the presence of an API might be an objectively good thing. Having an API isn’t like saying “it’s more flexible” but it’s presence does make the solution more flexible. Therefore, when working to evaluate any software solution it’s important to go in with a table of needs; a rubric that attempts to list specific features that are not merely a manifestation of someone’s opinion on how something should look or behave but whose presence make the solution objectively stronger,