MonkeyWiki: Monkey Books Motivation

My purpose in writing Monkey Books is to create a tool which is principally for my own book-keeping, but which has enough freedom within it to do some of the work which would normally be considered 'accounting' as well.

Why not use a product already on the market you ask? Essentially because they tend to do precisely the opposite of what I want:

They tend to boast things like 'no knowledge of double-entry book-keeping necessary', but then force you to learn their ghastly methodology
They try to shield you from what is really going on with your data
They try to offer you hundreds of functions which then make the interface an absolute mess
Many are overly date-driven, allowing a horrible quagmire to build up
They try to be tolerant of sloppy practice e.g. - allowing editing of data
By being so general and 'tolerant' they make book-keeping more of a chore, rather than being something disciplined but straightforward

I want to create something on the other hand that adopts the following principles:

It will closely follow the methodology of manual book-keeping
It will demand an understanding of double-entry
Above all, it will be simple - not in the sense that a clueless idiot could use it, but in the sense that your average book-keeper could use it with no instructions at all. (Well, I've got to sound confident anyway!)
It will be totally transparent in what it does with your data - to the point of showing you exactly what it intends to post where, before you commit any type of transaction (and will assume you know what all the postings mean!)
It will take minimal notice of dates, but place emphasis on periods
When a period is closed, no further posting will be allowed in it, thus making hard-copy reports valid for any closed period. It also dispenses with having to flag VAT transactions etc.
It will impose some discipline - for example it will be assumed that you will only close a period with bank accounts reconciled. Then you don't have to worry about them again. Similarly with VAT returns.
No editing allowed at all. Really there is no real need for edits/deletes - fully narrated reversals are much better.

Obviously Monkey Books is never going to be a market leader! But if I'm happy, and I have learned a whole lot more about programming, then it will have been worth doing.

More random thoughts to follow...

On to Monkey Books Model