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The Rise of "Worse is Better"

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Re: The Rise of "Worse is Better"

#11

Post by walrusty »

Regarding how "the right thing" stacks up to the worse-is-better solution, the author writes:

> How does the right thing stack up? There are two basic scenarios: the ``big complex system scenario'' and the ``diamond-like jewel'' scenario.

> The ``diamond-like jewel'' scenario [Scheme] goes like this:

> The right thing takes forever to design, but it is quite small at every point along the way. To implement it to run fast is either impossible or beyond the capabilities of most implementors.

This doesn't sound like it's actually the case, is it? There are, of course, many different Scheme implementations; they seem to get implemented in reasonable amounts of time, and some execute code very quickly indeed.

Re: The Rise of "Worse is Better"

#12

Post by shriphani »

baguasquirrel wrote: post #7

You know, this almost reminds me of the ML vs. Haskell debate. I remember fondly, hearing the 15-312 kids talk about how ML is right and everything else is wrong. The CMU PL dept was kind of adorable that way. One of the classic examples is Haskell's typeclasses. Haskell's typeclasses are kinda kludgy because there's no way to provide more than one instance of a typeclass. ML's functors are way better. But as it turn…

Dude, you just DID NOT insult Haskell !

[Sort of relevant]

Apparently SPJ was once asked by a customs official in America if an american citizen could do what he did. Someone with him announced that his work as the creator of ML made him irreplaceable.

So you see, ML's got fanboys in high places. Even close to SPJ apparently.

Source for SPJ Koan : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWSZ4c9yqW8 (around the 4 min mark).

Re: The Rise of "Worse is Better"

#13

Post by chrisdone »

shriphani wrote: post #12
baguasquirrel wrote: post #7

You know, this almost reminds me of the ML vs. Haskell debate. I remember fondly, hearing the 15-312 kids talk about how ML is right and everything else is wrong. The CMU PL dept was kind of adorable that way. One of the classic examples is Haskell's typeclasses. Haskell's typeclasses are kinda kludgy because there's no way to provide more than one instance of a typeclass. ML's functors are way better. But as it turn…

Dude, you just DID NOT insult Haskell ! [Sort of relevant] Apparently SPJ was once asked by a customs official in America if an american citizen could do what he did. Someone with him announced that his work as the creator of ML made him irreplaceable. So you see, ML's got fanboys in high places. Even close to SPJ apparently. Source for SPJ Koan : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWSZ4c9yqW8 (around the 4 min mark).

FWIW you can link to a specific time in a YouTube video like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWSZ4c9yqW8#t=3m0s

Re: The Rise of "Worse is Better"

#14

Post by jamesrcole »

I've always felt that calling this "Worse is Better" is misleading.

It's more that "Worse leads to more mind-share" (a kind of economic argument) and "Worse tools can lead to better design of system's built using them".

Neither of which actually mean that worse is necessarily better.

Re: The Rise of "Worse is Better"

#16

Post by psykotic »

gfodor wrote: post #9
baguasquirrel wrote: post #7

You know, this almost reminds me of the ML vs. Haskell debate. I remember fondly, hearing the 15-312 kids talk about how ML is right and everything else is wrong. The CMU PL dept was kind of adorable that way. One of the classic examples is Haskell's typeclasses. Haskell's typeclasses are kinda kludgy because there's no way to provide more than one instance of a typeclass. ML's functors are way better. But as it turn…

You have to concede it's a bit funny that you're pointing to Haskell as an example of the 'worse-is-better' approach that leads to viral adoption of dirty solutions over the endless pursuit of perfection.

If anything you could turn it around and say that ML's approach to control and data effects exemplifies worse-is-better on the purity spectrum. It took a long time for Haskell to solve these problems a la Haskell 98. It's only recently that Haskell has "caught on" relative to ML.

Re: The Rise of "Worse is Better"

#17

Post by nknight »

MIT == Academia, New Jersey == Real World. That's all this debate has ever truly been about.

"The right thing" in any particular situation is whatever results in a working system. Economics dictate that perfection rarely wins. There's a reason Unix came out of Bell Labs.

Re: The Rise of "Worse is Better"

#19

Post by Peaker »

baguasquirrel wrote: post #7

You know, this almost reminds me of the ML vs. Haskell debate. I remember fondly, hearing the 15-312 kids talk about how ML is right and everything else is wrong. The CMU PL dept was kind of adorable that way. One of the classic examples is Haskell's typeclasses. Haskell's typeclasses are kinda kludgy because there's no way to provide more than one instance of a typeclass. ML's functors are way better. But as it turn…

Perhaps Haskell compromised on first-class modules. But ML compromised on:

* Type-classes (which overlap but aren't really the same thing and are probably more important)

* Typed-effects (a.k.a purity): This is a big one to lose.

* Laziness/Strictness control

I think ML is more of a compromise than Haskell.

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