When you're programming something complicated, arbitrary ugliness in the APIs you're using brings you more trouble than when you're programming something simple

When you're programming something complicated, arbitrary ugliness in the APIs you're using brings you more trouble than when you're programming something simple. Right? So what's different about complicated math or physics? That's how I realized pi was wrong, back before the manifesto came out -- from looking at math the same way I'd learned to look at programs.