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The Rise of Worse Is Better (1991)

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Re: The Rise of Worse Is Better (1991)

#81

Post by AnimalMuppet »

clarkevans wrote: post #45

I think the worse-is-better philosophy is not well encapsulated with the 4 priorities given. Perhaps it is 4 completely different priorities. Here's a strawman. 1. Minimal -- the design and implementation must be the smallest as possible, especially the scope (which should be deliberately "incomplete") 2. Timely -- the implementation must be delivered as soon as feasible, even if it comes before the design (get it wo…

That seems like a fairly solid strawman.

I would say that Timely and Relevant drive Minimal. I would also say that Minimal and Usable are in tension with each other.

Re: The Rise of Worse Is Better (1991)

#82

Post by kragen »

kqr wrote: post #37
NAHWheatCracker wrote: post #11

I'll never understand the obsession with LISP. My guess is it just appeals to a certain type of person, sort of academic in my view. I'm not convinced that LISP was ever the-right-thing. The author didn't express anything about LISP vs C except to assert that C was a 50% solution and LISP was better. I agree though that for practical purposes, practical solutions are just going to be more successful.

> I'm not convinced that LISP was ever the-right-thing. Remember that this has to be read in historical context. At the time C was invented, things like garbage collection, message-passing object-orientation, generics, rich sets of conditionals, first-class functions, etc. were brand spanking new. They were The Right Thing to do (even judged in the harsh light of hindsight), but also quite complicated to implement –…

This paper was written in 01991. Garbage collection is from 01959. Message-passing (aka object-orientation) is from 01972. C is from 01973. If by "generics" you mean parametric polymorphism, those were added to Ada and C++ in the mid-80s, after having been invented in ML in 01973; in a sense they're an attempt to bring the virtues of dynamically-typed languages like Lisp to statically-typed languages. Even today, I don't think there's a Common Lisp implementation with any kind of parametrically-polymorphic static type system, not even as an optimization. First-class functions are also from 01959, or, arguably from 01936, in the untyped λ-calculus, or 01920, in combinatory logic.

Some of these things were brand spanking new in 01973, but none were in 01991.

There were Lisp systems for minicomputers like the PDP-11; BSD included one (which I think was ancestral to Franz Lisp) and XLISP ran on CP/M. And of course Smalltalk was developed almost entirely on PDP-11-sized minicomputers. But to my recollection virtually all "serious" software for microcomputers and minicomputers was written in low-level languages like assembly or C into the late 80s, not even PL/M—though Pascal did start to win in the late 80s, in significant part by adopting C's low-level features. Nowadays, microcomputers are big enough and fast enough that Lisp, Haskell, or even Rust is viable.

I don't think "the right thing" is mostly about what features your system has. I think it has more to do with designing those features to work predictably and compose effectively.

Re: The Rise of Worse Is Better (1991)

#83

Post by stonemetal12 »

pjc50 wrote: post #60
Der_Einzige wrote: post #16

I know this is an article about Lisp and the specific usage of this term in the context of software acceptance, but when you use a title that provocative I want to speak specifically about the idea of "Worse is Better" with respect to a more literal idea of "sometimes things get worse overtime but you are told they have improved" For example, why is it that central vacuums are more rare in 2024 than they were in the…

What the heck is a central vaccum? One plumbed into the house? Isn't that spectacularly expensive?

>A main disadvantage of central vacuums is the higher initial cost. In the United States, the average central vacuum system has an installed cost of around $1,000.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_vacuum_cleaner

Considering the price of a house it isn't "spectacularly expensive". On the other hand vs the price of a hoover yeah a bit. Since it sits in a closet or garage and doesn't move, weight becomes a non issue so it can be a real behemoth of a vacuum.

Re: The Rise of Worse Is Better (1991)

#84

Post by pjmlp »

linguae wrote: post #80
pjmlp wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also Lisp came out in 1958, and ESPOL/NEWP in 1961, PL/I and its derivates, predating C by a decade. Had AT&T been allowed to charge real money for UNIX, and the Worse is Better would never happened.

Counterpoint: Some other “worse” would have probably taken over. We’ve seen this in the personal computing market, where MS-DOS (later Windows) and the x86 won out against competing operating systems and ISAs not because of technical superiority, but because of market forces and cost. Look at the evolution of the Web, especially JavaScript.... It’s likely that Unix might not had spread if AT&T didn’t give it relative…

Or maybe we would be enjoying VMS or something like that, not written in a language that 60 years later after its inception still doesn't do bounds checking and decays arrays into pointers to save typing four characters.

Re: The Rise of Worse Is Better (1991)

#85

Post by dkarl »

hammock wrote: post #43

There was an article posted on here[1] a while back that I only just found again, introducing the term "expedience." The idea was that we think we live in a world where people have to have "the best" sweater, be on "the best" social network, drive "the best" car, etc. But when you look at what really WINS, it's not the best, it's the most "expedient" - i.e. sufficiently good, with built-in social proof, inoculated of…

"Expedient" is a common (or at least not rare) English word that means something like "practical and effective even if not directly attending to higher or deeper considerations."

For example, if two students in a class are having frequent confrontations that bring learning in the class to a halt, and attempts by teachers and counselors to address their conflict directly haven't been effective, the expedient solution might be to place them in separate classes. The "right thing" would be to address the problem on the social and emotional level, but if continued efforts to do so is likely to result in continued disruption to the students' education, it might be better to separate them. "Expedient" acknowledges the trade-off, while emphasizing the positive outcome.

Often a course of action is described as "expedient" when it seems to dodge an issue of morality or virtue. For example, if we solve climate change with geoengineering instead of by addressing thoughtless consumerism, corporate impunity, and lack of international accountability, many people would feel frustrated or let down by the solution because it would solve the problem without addressing the moral shortcomings that led to the problem. The word expedient stresses the positive side of this, the effectiveness and practicality of the solution, while acknowledging that it leaves other, perhaps deeper issues unaddressed.

Re: The Rise of Worse Is Better (1991)

#86

Post by kragen »

pjc50 wrote: post #60
Der_Einzige wrote: post #16

I know this is an article about Lisp and the specific usage of this term in the context of software acceptance, but when you use a title that provocative I want to speak specifically about the idea of "Worse is Better" with respect to a more literal idea of "sometimes things get worse overtime but you are told they have improved" For example, why is it that central vacuums are more rare in 2024 than they were in the…

What the heck is a central vaccum? One plumbed into the house? Isn't that spectacularly expensive?

Yes, one plumbed into the house.

Re: The Rise of Worse Is Better (1991)

#87

Post by blenderob »

arethuza wrote: post #67
pjc50 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over the years I've developed what I call the "lefthanded scissors" analogy: people assume that everyone's mind is wired the same way and that all good programmers are good in the same way and think in the same way, but what if that's not true? What if different people have a predisposition (like lefthandedness) to prefer different tools? Then a righthanded person picks up the lefthanded scissors and deems them weird…

I've seen Common Lisp source code that I didn't even recognise as Common Lisp because of over-enthusiastic use of reader macros... Edit: I should also mention that once I worked out how reader macros worked I went on to enthusiastically (ab)use them for my own ends...

If there has been over-enthusiastic use of reader macros, I think we will have to admit that the over-enthusiastic developer is no longer writing Common Lisp code.

Those reader macros have morphed the language into a new bespoke language. So it is then natural for a new developer to face a steep learning curve to learn that new bespoke language before they can make sense of the code.

I'm not condoning overuse of macros. I'd hate to be working with such code too. I'm only stating that Common Lisp is that language that can be programmed to become a different language. They call it a "programmable programming language" for a reason.

Re: The Rise of Worse Is Better (1991)

#88

Post by pif »

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #48
NAHWheatCracker wrote: post #11

I'll never understand the obsession with LISP. My guess is it just appeals to a certain type of person, sort of academic in my view. I'm not convinced that LISP was ever the-right-thing. The author didn't express anything about LISP vs C except to assert that C was a 50% solution and LISP was better. I agree though that for practical purposes, practical solutions are just going to be more successful.

Such a weird take on HN. Lisp should be experimented with if only to appreciate the profound beauty of a small, powerful, cohesive design. It is a wholly different feeling from industry standard languages which are constantly changing. In Lisp, almost all of the language’s power is in “user space.” The ramifications for that are deep and your beliefs as to whether that is good are largely shaped by whether you believ…

> languages which are constantly changing

They change because they are used.

Re: The Rise of Worse Is Better (1991)

#89

Post by kragen »

pjmlp wrote: post #84
linguae wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: Some other “worse” would have probably taken over. We’ve seen this in the personal computing market, where MS-DOS (later Windows) and the x86 won out against competing operating systems and ISAs not because of technical superiority, but because of market forces and cost. Look at the evolution of the Web, especially JavaScript.... It’s likely that Unix might not had spread if AT&T didn’t give it relative…

Or maybe we would be enjoying VMS or something like that, not written in a language that 60 years later after its inception still doesn't do bounds checking and decays arrays into pointers to save typing four characters.

BLISS-11 didn't do bounds-checking either. VMS was my favorite operating system until I got access to a Unix. People chose Unix because it was better—and not just by a little. Handicapping Unix wouldn't have improved the alternative systems.

Re: The Rise of Worse Is Better (1991)

#90

Post by pjmlp »

kragen wrote: post #89
pjmlp wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe we would be enjoying VMS or something like that, not written in a language that 60 years later after its inception still doesn't do bounds checking and decays arrays into pointers to save typing four characters.

BLISS-11 didn't do bounds-checking either. VMS was my favorite operating system until I got access to a Unix. People chose Unix because it was better—and not just by a little. Handicapping Unix wouldn't have improved the alternative systems.

VMS also supported Pascal and BASIC dialects for systems programming, in equal footing to BLISS.

People choose free beer, it always goes even if warm.

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