Re: [9fans] design issues in operating systems

[Lucio De Re <lucio@proxima.alt.za>]

On Mon, Dec 03, 2001 at 11:07:49AM -0500, anothy@cosym.net wrote:
>
> why are people talking about design and evolution as though
> they're mutually exclusive?
>
To a degree, that's the case, though.  Design enforces rigidity and
wherever there's flexibility there's also room for error, which is
what design attempts to factor out.  Flexibility is where adaptation
occurs, with fatal mutations more the norm than the exception.

> a good design is one which is simple enough to comfortably
> allow for reasonable evolution. whereas i agree design _is_
> predictave, the results need not be static.
>
Simplicity in design (minimalism, in fact) is the ideal, in that its
rigidity is limited to essentials and, hopefully, does not apply to
the growth/evolution areas.  My opinion is that one should formalise
useful adaptations and absorb them into a design, which is the way I
think we humans operate at an intellectual level.

The difficulty is finding the motivation or vision to abandon baggage
whose function is exclusively to provide a familiar environment.
Remembering that in this forum I suggested not long ago that one
should not underestimate the importance of familiarity :-)

In this context, familiarity is just another evolutionary pressure
and, I must point out, evolution has no foresight, its purpose is to
increase the viability of an organism in the present, immediately
adjacent environment.

The mistake of assuming that evolution is progressive is evident even
in Linus Torvald's statement quoted earlier: the implication is that
an evolved Linux is somehow "better" that its predecessors.  It could
be agreed that it is better equipped for survival, but not necessarily
superior in some intellectual sense.

Materialists may well argue that that is all that counts, of course.

++L