4 ms·
You've made a subtle change of meaning there. By going from: > should be made as generic as possible To: > should be made no more generic/abstract than actua
by chriswarbo 12y ago
You've made a subtle change of meaning there. By going from:
> should be made as generic as possible
To:
> should be made no more generic/abstract than actually neccesary.
You've introduced a subjective judgment call. The result is a tautology, since we could rephrase it to:
> should be made no more generic/abstract than it should
Whether or not we agree with the quotes from Einstein or the parent, at least they're (mostly) objective, and tell us how to proceed: if anyone finds a way to simplify or generalise a result (without sacrificing correctness), they should do it.
- jrochkind1 12y agoI don't know if it's any different in objective/subjective, I think, as applied to software engineering, anyway, there's always a subjective element. I suppose the corresponding operationalization to the way I've phrased it is: Don't add genericness unless you are unable to find a way to proceed with what is needed without it. I think (and I think the OP thinks) the problem we have more often is people adding too much abstraction, not too little. If so, we need a rule that discourages, rather than encourages, the problem.