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Elegant but inadequate is common (to name just one combo.) "Not elegant for this purpose" perverts the meaning of elegant. You can say it's not an elegant solut
by Nomentatus 9y ago
Elegant but inadequate is common (to name just one combo.) "Not elegant for this purpose" perverts the meaning of elegant. You can say it's not an elegant solution 'cause it's not a solution, if you like, though.
I think you've made a "No true Scotsman" statement, in other words - just swapping "elegant" for "Scotsman."
- erikpukinskis 9y agoI disagree. Elegance is fundamentally tied to purpose and... if not efficiency of operation, efficiency of material and structure. A car which is awful to drive and breaks down all the time, but which has simple clever solutions to problems and clean lines is not elegant at all. Or at best it is half elegant. Elegant is a superset of effectiveness. Also, side note, I would be happy to never see this “No True Scotsman” argument ever again. 9 times out of 10 it’s just used to demonize ideas: “Your idea was used in this horrible way once”/“That mistake is not inherent to the idea”/“No true Scotsman!” That’s not what you did here. So you’re the 10th. But my point is it’s just used as a rhetorical trick, from what I’ve seen.
- jcelerier 9y ago> Elegance is fundamentally tied to purpose .... eh ? what weird definition of elegance are you using ?
- jacquesm 9y agoNot all that weird if you look at it this way: elegance is that which solves the problem at hand with the minimum amount of fuss and materials. That's strongly tied to purpose.
- Nomentatus 8y agoThat's one species. But elegant, and alas, wrong answers abound.