User blog comment:Dopp/Updates to How We Search/@comment-957747-20120427001220/@comment-5473581-20120427223345

As a programmer myself, that comment tells me that you aren't a very good one.
 * "As a coder, I know that having the option for both of them in this situation is simply not feasible."

Having options for both is completely feasible, and would entail only a few lines of code - most of which are probably already there, commented out, since wikia once had both a "search" button and a "go" button. A simple change to the "which button was pushed" if statements to check "which preference is set", and there you have it.

A better solution to the problem would be to simply have both buttons again - that way people who want to search can press "Search" and get "Search results" and people who want to Go to an article can press "go" and go to an article. If hitting "Enter" defaults to the search, I can live with that, so long as the Tab index is set correctly so I can just tab once or twice before hitting enter. (Wikia has a problem with setting Tab indexes - they still haven't fixed the new editor)

I'm all for benefiting more people, and believe in "the greatest good for the greatest number", which means pleasing everyone whereever possible, and in this case that translates into giving people a choice. I do not see any reason at all that there cannot be both a "Search" and "Go" button in order to give everyone a choice.
 * "It has to be one or the other." + "this change benefits more people than it hinders."

Well, I can think of one reason to force everyone onto an intermediate page, if that intermediate page happened to contain ads.