6 ms·
Note that this describes a Zen state (as in the Western colloquial sense) and is supposed to be intentionally self-contradicting to provoke thoughts. It’s somet
by uranusjr 4y ago
Note that this describes a Zen state (as in the Western colloquial sense) and is supposed to be intentionally self-contradicting to provoke thoughts. It’s sometimes disappointing to see a lot of people follow it as rules or strong suggestions, which completely misses the point.
- bityard 4y agoIt seems obvious that they are at least strong suggestions, what makes you think they are not?
- jofer 4y agoIt's a matter of how you interpret and use them. If you think about it as "strong suggestions", then yeah it seems obvious that they're suggestions for how to approach ambiguous situations. However, that's also missing the point a bit. It's often more useful to think about it as "thought exercises when trying to understand the design philosophy". Note that it deliberately contradicts itself. Similarly, things like "flat is better than nested" and "sparse is better than dense" are completely false a lot of the time. There are plenty of cases where the opposite is true for practical reasons like memory use or access patterns. The point is not necessarily to make those as statements or suggestions. The point is to give you something to think about. They're more like koans than suggestions. Think about why and where they're not true as much as why and where they are. And don't take it too seriously, either way! The whole thing of "import this" is tongue in cheek, after all.