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I’d think this actually applies to nearly everything in software and is def a useful thing to keep an eye on. Underemployment for the last 3 years has given me

I’d think this actually applies to nearly everything in software and is def a useful thing to keep an eye on. Underemployment for the last 3 years has given me a great opportunity to dive deeper into a lot of CS topics for things we use daily and read (or at least try to read) specs and code bases etc. I’ve come to firmly believe that languages or other open source projects that get popular, usually do so for the things that are in its early versions. For example, the HTTP 0.9 spec is like 1 page. UDP is like 3 pages. I’d seen an article on HN recently (cant remember the name) that described this well. A language or what not starts simply and many jump on the bandwagon. Then starts adding incremental features, none of which are difficult to incrementally learn for existing users but the footprint of the product keeps expanding. C++, Javascript, Web APIs, graphics languages like OpenGL all are examples in my eye. The fact that our system (broadly speaking) incentivizes inventing something ‘new’ rather than fixing or simplifying an existing something certainly exacerbates this.

carapace 3y ago
When I try to explain this to non-programmers I often use this metaphor: Imagine that you enjoy mountain climbing, but the act of climbing the mountain causes more mountain to rise above you. That's what we see in software development: a runaway process of elaboration and ever-increasing complexity and levels of abstraction.
vitiral 3y ago
Lua has done pretty well to avoid this IMO. Notably they added coroutines with basically zero cost to the implementation (essentially just a pointer keeping track of function position on top of the already existing closures). The whole language is incredibly constrained yet powerful
vram22 3y ago
>I’d think this actually applies to nearly everything in software and is def a useful thing to keep an eye on. Sort of like if the Peter Principle and Parkinson's Law had a child. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law Or just Zawinskis Law: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski#Zawinski's_Law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski#Zawinski's_La...

carapace 3y ago

When I try to explain this to non-programmers I often use this metaphor: Imagine that you enjoy mountain climbing, but the act of climbing the mountain causes more mountain to rise above you. That's what we see in software development: a runaway process of elaboration and ever-increasing complexity and levels of abstraction.

vitiral 3y ago

Lua has done pretty well to avoid this IMO. Notably they added coroutines with basically zero cost to the implementation (essentially just a pointer keeping track of function position on top of the already existing closures). The whole language is incredibly constrained yet powerful

vram22 3y ago

>I’d think this actually applies to nearly everything in software and is def a useful thing to keep an eye on. Sort of like if the Peter Principle and Parkinson's Law had a child. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law Or just Zawinskis Law: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski#Zawinski's_Law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski#Zawinski's_La...