plone/plone.app.users — comment on commit c2cac165d05776ae3c25386595e13c388a7483e2
File: plone/app/users/browser/personalpreferences.py line 362
By djay:

Doesn't that defeat the whole point of an interface? So I'd have code like if getattr(validationplugin,'passworddescription',None) is not None? I think about as ugly as hinting to implementors that shorter versions of their errors could be given if the password is '' as this could be used to add to the description, instead of displayed as an error.
An alternative is we just don't show "please enter a password" in the description.
In fact, the UI could be changed in the future to not show the error text at all. A lot of password widgets these days just show a password strength meter. This could be implemented using the same plugin archetecture by just counting the number of errors returned and showing red>3, orange>0, green=0.

I'm not saying you personally have done a bad job. Just that maybe the process can be improved somehow to give more assistance to those that need it earlier on in the process rather than waiting till the point of merge to give guidance. What if there was an informal architectural review step where someone familiar with the code and the PLIP process helps the person who will do most of the work to come up with an architecture before any code is written. So step 2 on a PLIP is "yes Ross has talked to Dylan is is happy with with the planned architecture", OK to start coding now.