Design-by-Committee

[Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes]

02 May 2001 15:26:55 -0400 in <3dg0enpn5s.fsf at crystal.cnri.reston.va.us>,
Andrew Kuchling <akuchlin at mems-exchange.org> spake:
> root at 127.0.0.1 (David) writes:
>> Is the primary focus these days on adding new language
>> features/commands/components, or on cleaning up the existing codebase?
> It seems to mostly be on new language features (iterations,
> generators, unifying types and classes).  I think this effort is
> mostly misplaced; raw language features are rarely a reason to choose
> one language over another, the availability of libraries being a more
> critical issue.  Sadly the development team seems to have forgotten
> this.

  In a way, I'd rather have neither.  New libraries means more bloat to
the installed package, and if they're shipped standard then people will
be more likely to use them, thus making all of them mandatory.  See also
"Java" (and I do Java in my "day job", and mostly like it despite it
having grown 10x from 1.1 to 1.3).

  If there's new language features, then old code may no longer work,
and new code will certainly not work on old interpreters.

  Fixing bugs and making some of the ugly bits better is what I want.
Iterators are an example of a good thing, though perhaps overkill.

  Making more optional library packages which can be easily installed by
users would be a wonderful thing.

  A better distribution story would make me happier, as that's been >50%
of my troubles.

  A "just-in-time" compiler or any other kind of major speedup that
works across platforms would *REALLY* make me happy.

  A language does not need to become more bloated to stay alive; it's
not like congress, which has to keep passing laws to keep getting
elected.  We'll reelect Guido even if all he does is sit in his cabana
in St. Martin and drink tequila.  Heck, especially then.

-- 
 <a href="http://kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu/~kamikaze/"> Mark Hughes </a>
"I will tell you things that will make you laugh and uncomfortable and really
fucking angry and that no one else is telling you.  What I won't do is bullshit
you.  I'm here for the same thing you are.  The Truth." -Transmetropolitan #39