9 Dec
2020
9 Dec
'20
10:40 p.m.
On Wed, Dec 9, 2020 at 8:41 AM Clem Cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
Amen Doug.
On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 11:36 PM M Douglas McIlroy <
m.douglas.mcilroy(a)dartmouth.edu> wrote:
I agree, but I thought Cole's Law was thinly sliced cabbage.
Warner
To paraphrase John Cocke (speaking about
Fortran): one must understand
that Unix commands are not a logical language. They are a natural
language--in the sense that they developed by organic evolution, not
"intelligent design".
But I offer a suggestion that another dimension that should be forgotten
in time scale and the economics within.
When things evolve they do so on different clocks that are not
necessarily linear. *i.e. *what was 'better' (winning) today, but might
not be considered so tomorrow, however could yet prove otherwise sometime
later. I use programming languages as a great example... There was a
huge C vs Pascal debate, that C 'won' - but I've always said the rise of
C++ came from the Pascal folks that could say "C didn't win." From the
ashes of C++ we have Java, Go, and Rust.
My point is that "intelligent design" doesn't necessarily guarantee
goodness or for that matter,complete logical thinking.
My own take on this is what I call "Cole's Law" *Simple economics
always beats sophisticated architecture.*
What you call *organic evolution* is what I think of what makes the *best
economic sense* for the user and that is a function of the time scale and
available resources at the time of creation/deployment.
Clem