5 ms·

For context, "worse is better" refers to Gabriel's observation that products with simple implementations and complicated interfaces tend to achieve adoption fas

by kqr 1y ago

For context, "worse is better" refers to Gabriel's observation that products with simple implementations and complicated interfaces tend to achieve adoption faster than products with complex implementations and elegant interfaces. One of the original motivating examples were Unix-like systems (simple implementation, few correctness guarantees in interfaces) vs. Lisp-based systems (often well specified interfaces, but with complicated implementations as the cost.)

seanmcdirmid 1y ago
I think Richard Gabriel attributes it to Jamie Zawinski?
- amiga386 1y ago
  He does not. https://dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html https://dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html > One day in Spring 1989, I was sitting out on the Lucid porch with some of the hackers, and someone asked me why I thought people believed C and Unix were better than Lisp. I jokingly answered, "because, well, worse is better." We laughed over it for a while as I tried to make up an argument for why something clearly lousy could be good. He then wrote Lisp: Good News, Bad News, How to Win Big (https://www.dreamsongs.com/WIB.html https://www.dreamsongs.com/WIB.html) for his EuroPAL keynote speech > JWZ excerpted the worse-is-better sections [from Lisp: Good News, Bad News, How to Win Big] and sent them to his friends at CMU, who sent them to their friends at Bell Labs, who sent them to their friends everywhere. The excerpt: https://www.dreamsongs.com/RiseOfWorseIsBetter.html https://www.dreamsongs.com/RiseOfWorseIsBetter.html
b112 1y ago
Now the 'God wrote in lisp' song makes even more sense. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5-OjTPj7K54 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5-OjTPj7K54
- b112 1y ago
  I'm going to write a scifi story, the plot? The lisp path won, Lispus instead of Linux, and we had AGI in 1997 due to code elegance.
- vermilingua 1y ago
  https://xkcd.com/224/ https://xkcd.com/224/
- neom 1y ago
  This is amazing, almost amazing as the website of the man who wrote it: https://www.songworm.com/index.html https://www.songworm.com/index.html - "I wrote the generator for these pages in Macintosh Common Lisp."

by kqr 1y ago

seanmcdirmid 1y ago

I think Richard Gabriel attributes it to Jamie Zawinski?

amiga386 1y ago
He does not. https://dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html https://dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html > One day in Spring 1989, I was sitting out on the Lucid porch with some of the hackers, and someone asked me why I thought people believed C and Unix were better than Lisp. I jokingly answered, "because, well, worse is better." We laughed over it for a while as I tried to make up an argument for why something clearly lousy could be good. He then wrote Lisp: Good News, Bad News, How to Win Big (https://www.dreamsongs.com/WIB.html https://www.dreamsongs.com/WIB.html) for his EuroPAL keynote speech > JWZ excerpted the worse-is-better sections [from Lisp: Good News, Bad News, How to Win Big] and sent them to his friends at CMU, who sent them to their friends at Bell Labs, who sent them to their friends everywhere. The excerpt: https://www.dreamsongs.com/RiseOfWorseIsBetter.html https://www.dreamsongs.com/RiseOfWorseIsBetter.html

b112 1y ago

Now the 'God wrote in lisp' song makes even more sense. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5-OjTPj7K54 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5-OjTPj7K54

b112 1y ago
I'm going to write a scifi story, the plot? The lisp path won, Lispus instead of Linux, and we had AGI in 1997 due to code elegance.
vermilingua 1y ago
https://xkcd.com/224/ https://xkcd.com/224/
neom 1y ago
This is amazing, almost amazing as the website of the man who wrote it: https://www.songworm.com/index.html https://www.songworm.com/index.html - "I wrote the generator for these pages in Macintosh Common Lisp."