Finally got around to reading Worse is Better by D. Gabriel. I must admit, I feel I'm more of a "right thing" kind of guy, but I can see what Gabriel's point is. It seems to be a variation on "the perfect is the enemy of the good" (Voltaire, me thinks). I specially liked the idea that trying to design a system that has all the correct interface leads to a system that rarely sees the light of day. The implementation is just a nightmare for these 100% perfect interface systems.
I've know for a while now that the kind of compromises that this paper brings to light are hard for me to swallow. Probably the reason why I think I'd much rather do science than engineering. Darn, I want simplest and complete interface, AND simplest and efficient implementation.
On thought that came to my mind as I read the paper was: is Haskell trying to be the "right thing"? What do you think?
1 comment:
I see Haskell as being the right thing, but that's ok, cause it's more a research language for the science people. Yeah some people use it, including me, for actual real world development, but Haskell stems more theoretical talk than actual dev, IMHO. So it being the "right thing" and trying to be 100% is ok.
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