4 ms·

Warts are the product of caring about backwards compatibility with initial design mistakes. So I'm not sure they're a reliable heuristic for better choice of te

by lmm 1y ago

Warts are the product of caring about backwards compatibility with initial design mistakes. So I'm not sure they're a reliable heuristic for better choice of technology. E.g. YAML is definitely much wartier than JSON, but I think the latter is a much better choice for long-term use than the former.

gwd 1y ago
I don't think the claim is "More warts is better". I think the claim is, "A technology with at least a few warts is an indication of longevity". Basically, if there are no obvious warts, then either: 1. The designers magically hit upon exactly the right needed solution the very first time, every time, or 2. The designers regularly throw away warty interfaces in favor of cleaner ones. #1 is possible, but #2 is far more likely.
- massysett 1y ago
  Another possibility is that the designers carefully examined predecessors to learn from their mistakes, and went through a long refinement period before stabilizing the design. This is Common Lisp.
  - lieks 1y ago
    Common Lisp does have plenty of warts.
  - bluGill 1y ago
    You can not have the old warts, but your correction may itself be a wart. Sometimes you learn the hard way why the last version was that wey
  - neutronicus 1y ago
    Common Lisp is basically a constellation of warts that people put up with in exchange for its macro system and REPL-driven development.
  - jodrellblank 1y ago
    Nothing warty about functions named "car, cdr, caar, cadr, cdar, cddr, caaar, caadr, cadar, caddr, cdaar, cdadr, cddar, cdddr, caaaar, caaadr, caadar, caaddr, cadaar, cadadr, caddar, cadddr, cdaaar, cdaadr, cdadar, cdaddr, cddaar, cddadr, cdddar, cddddr"[1] a domain specific language for walking into nested lists based on an implementation detail of how linked list pointers and values were packed into a single 36-bit memory location on an IBM 704 computer from the 1950s. [1] https://franz.com/support/documentation/ansicl/dictentr/carcdrca.htm https://franz.com/support/documentation/ansicl/dictentr/carc... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAR_and_CDR https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAR_and_CDR
  - Blackthorn 1y ago
    Dude, Common Lisp has so many warts that it makes fairy tale witches envious.
- cosmic_cheese 1y ago
  It’s probably possible to minimize warts without negatively impacting other aspects of the software. It just isn’t done very often, probably because that requires either a full feature freeze (allowing all resources to go towards disposing of the figurative bathwater while keeping the baby). At minimum a pointedly slow, judicious approach to feature additions that helps designers and devs to get more right the first time and only ship fully baked products to users is required. No, everything today is about endless frenzied stacking of features as high as possible, totally ignoring how askew the tower is sitting as a result. Just prop it up again for the 50th time and above all, ship faster!
andrewflnr 1y ago
JSON also has a few warts that aren't going away exactly due to backwards compatibility. So I think that's actually a pretty good illustration of the point.
- lmm 1y ago
  > JSON also has a few warts that aren't going away exactly due to backwards compatibility. So I think that's actually a pretty good illustration of the point. How? All nontrivial software has warts, you're never choosing between warts and no warts, you're choosing between more warts and less warts. And JSON has few warts compared to the alternatives, especially YAML.

by lmm 1y ago

gwd 1y ago

I don't think the claim is "More warts is better". I think the claim is, "A technology with at least a few warts is an indication of longevity". Basically, if there are no obvious warts, then either: 1. The designers magically hit upon exactly the right needed solution the very first time, every time, or 2. The designers regularly throw away warty interfaces in favor of cleaner ones. #1 is possible, but #2 is far more likely.

massysett 1y ago
Another possibility is that the designers carefully examined predecessors to learn from their mistakes, and went through a long refinement period before stabilizing the design. This is Common Lisp.
- lieks 1y ago
  Common Lisp does have plenty of warts.
- bluGill 1y ago
  You can not have the old warts, but your correction may itself be a wart. Sometimes you learn the hard way why the last version was that wey
- neutronicus 1y ago
  Common Lisp is basically a constellation of warts that people put up with in exchange for its macro system and REPL-driven development.
- jodrellblank 1y ago
  Nothing warty about functions named "car, cdr, caar, cadr, cdar, cddr, caaar, caadr, cadar, caddr, cdaar, cdadr, cddar, cdddr, caaaar, caaadr, caadar, caaddr, cadaar, cadadr, caddar, cadddr, cdaaar, cdaadr, cdadar, cdaddr, cddaar, cddadr, cdddar, cddddr"[1] a domain specific language for walking into nested lists based on an implementation detail of how linked list pointers and values were packed into a single 36-bit memory location on an IBM 704 computer from the 1950s. [1] https://franz.com/support/documentation/ansicl/dictentr/carcdrca.htm https://franz.com/support/documentation/ansicl/dictentr/carc... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAR_and_CDR https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAR_and_CDR
- Blackthorn 1y ago
  Dude, Common Lisp has so many warts that it makes fairy tale witches envious.
cosmic_cheese 1y ago
It’s probably possible to minimize warts without negatively impacting other aspects of the software. It just isn’t done very often, probably because that requires either a full feature freeze (allowing all resources to go towards disposing of the figurative bathwater while keeping the baby). At minimum a pointedly slow, judicious approach to feature additions that helps designers and devs to get more right the first time and only ship fully baked products to users is required. No, everything today is about endless frenzied stacking of features as high as possible, totally ignoring how askew the tower is sitting as a result. Just prop it up again for the 50th time and above all, ship faster!

andrewflnr 1y ago

JSON also has a few warts that aren't going away exactly due to backwards compatibility. So I think that's actually a pretty good illustration of the point.

lmm 1y ago
> JSON also has a few warts that aren't going away exactly due to backwards compatibility. So I think that's actually a pretty good illustration of the point. How? All nontrivial software has warts, you're never choosing between warts and no warts, you're choosing between more warts and less warts. And JSON has few warts compared to the alternatives, especially YAML.