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So we're presented with one design philosophy and one design Gabriel admits is a strawman. This was written before steelmanning was common and he was open about

So we're presented with one design philosophy and one design Gabriel admits is a strawman. This was written before steelmanning was common and he was open about it, so the strawman is forgivable. Then again, maybe they're both stickmen of those design approaches. All of the important context is stripped from both. What is the goal of the designed thing? How will it be used? What are the costs? The "better" "MIT/Stanford style" was designing things to be as perfect as possible when considered in a vacuum. The "worse" "NJ style" was intended for use in industry. I still see That jarring difference between the academic and industry approaches today. And I'd rather make a difference in the world with running software, but I can see value in academics, too.

majkinetor 5y ago
Yeah, the difference is about acedemia vs reality - real life is not a happy case - happy case is side case.
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  I was just referring to a paper I wrote, some years ago[0], about a [quite successful] system that I designed. It has become widely adopted, and has been taken over by a new, energetic, and highly-talented team. It is something that many in today's industry would sneer at. It's a primitive, mostly-procedural PHP framework that fails to achieve Buzzword Bingo. I deliberately designed it to be primitive. It is meant to be taken up by fairly unskilled users, and implemented in spartan, low-tech environments. It's really quite successful. The important parts are that the code quality is extremely high, as is the robustness of the system. I don't know if I've ever gotten a question about the code. In fact, I'm really just teats on a boar hog, as far as the current team is concerned. I don't think there's one blessed technical thing that I can offer them. It only took them a month or so to grok the system. They did sneer at it a lot, but they have yet to rewrite it in node.js (but they have written some excellent adapters for it in Node). I'm a big believer in functionality and utility over purity. It needs to work, and work well. Pretty is nice, but Quality and Applicability are the Principal goals. [0] https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/bmlt/ https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/bmlt/
  - majkinetor 5y ago
    > Pretty is nice, but Quality and Applicability are the Principal goals. Speed of maintenance is of ultimate importance with software that changes frequently. You may call this pretty, but in my book its principal goal.
    - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
      You haven't seen my software (which is easy to do. Just look at my HN handle). It's pretty easy to maintain. In fact, the gist of what I just wrote, is that I deliberately avoid trendy and fancy, in favor of Quality and maintainability. Additionally, high Quality code tends to need less maintenance.
xhevahir 5y ago
So we're presented with one design philosophy and one design Gabriel admits is a strawman. This was written before steelmanning was common and he was open about it, so the strawman is forgivable. "Steelmanning" is just a new term for the principle of charity, which has been around for centuries. Engineers didn't invent informal logic, and they don't get a pass for ignoring it.

majkinetor 5y ago

Yeah, the difference is about acedemia vs reality - real life is not a happy case - happy case is side case.

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
I was just referring to a paper I wrote, some years ago[0], about a [quite successful] system that I designed. It has become widely adopted, and has been taken over by a new, energetic, and highly-talented team. It is something that many in today's industry would sneer at. It's a primitive, mostly-procedural PHP framework that fails to achieve Buzzword Bingo. I deliberately designed it to be primitive. It is meant to be taken up by fairly unskilled users, and implemented in spartan, low-tech environments. It's really quite successful. The important parts are that the code quality is extremely high, as is the robustness of the system. I don't know if I've ever gotten a question about the code. In fact, I'm really just teats on a boar hog, as far as the current team is concerned. I don't think there's one blessed technical thing that I can offer them. It only took them a month or so to grok the system. They did sneer at it a lot, but they have yet to rewrite it in node.js (but they have written some excellent adapters for it in Node). I'm a big believer in functionality and utility over purity. It needs to work, and work well. Pretty is nice, but Quality and Applicability are the Principal goals. [0] https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/bmlt/ https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/bmlt/
- majkinetor 5y ago
  > Pretty is nice, but Quality and Applicability are the Principal goals. Speed of maintenance is of ultimate importance with software that changes frequently. You may call this pretty, but in my book its principal goal.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
    You haven't seen my software (which is easy to do. Just look at my HN handle). It's pretty easy to maintain. In fact, the gist of what I just wrote, is that I deliberately avoid trendy and fancy, in favor of Quality and maintainability. Additionally, high Quality code tends to need less maintenance.

xhevahir 5y ago

So we're presented with one design philosophy and one design Gabriel admits is a strawman. This was written before steelmanning was common and he was open about it, so the strawman is forgivable. "Steelmanning" is just a new term for the principle of charity, which has been around for centuries. Engineers didn't invent informal logic, and they don't get a pass for ignoring it.