From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Message-Id: <200202052306.XAA27110@localhost.localdomain>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Cc: steve@localhost.localdomain
Subject: Re: [9fans] code complexity 
In-Reply-To: Message from "david presotto" <presotto@closedmind.org> 
   of "Tue, 05 Feb 2002 12:20:51 EST." <003d01c1ae69$767283e0$1765c0d0@cc583254b> 
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
From: Steve Kilbane <steve@whitecrow.demon.co.uk>
Date: Tue,  5 Feb 2002 23:06:27 +0000
Topicbox-Message-UUID: 4d31d740-eaca-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025

I agree with presotto in that the real world induces complexity, but
for a slightly different reason. Plan 9 is an example of a system
where a problem can be solved at the "right" place, but most programmers
don't have that luxury. They're playing in a very small corner of the
field, and no matter how they complain, the rest of the field is not
going to shift itself around to accommodate them. It doesn't matter that
the change might produce a better system, because there's too much
inertia, and too much already invested in the status quo. So programmers
bung on their own little bit that solves their current problem, and move
on.

None of which excuses the ones who write isolated code and still make it
complex.

Code bloat, on the other hand, has another driving factor: it's often
easier for someone to write something from scratch than learn their system
well enough to realise that there's something already there that does it.
That's just laziness.

steve