On 2017-05-01 1:25 PM, ron minnich wrote:
OK, I recall a note dmr wrote probably in the late
70s/early 80s when
folks at UCB had (iirc) extended the symbol name size in C programs to
essentially unlimited. This followed on (iirc) file names going beyond
14 characters.
The rough outline was that dmr was calling out the revisions for being
too general, and the phrase "BSD sins" sticks in my head (sins as a verb).
I'm reminded of this by something that happened with some interns
recently, as they wanted to make something immensely complex to cover a
case that basically never happened. I was trying to point out that you
can go overboard on that sort of thing, and it would have been nice to
have such a quote handy -- anyone else remember it?
Not what you're looking for, but in recent times we'd just say YAGNI -
You Ain't Gonna Need It.
--T
ron