Re: [ID 19991229.003] perl 5.005_03 core dumps -- signal

[Tom Christiansen <tchrist@chthon.perl.com>]

>Most of the time it boils down to the question of taste, which is
>probably out of the realm of this particular forum.

You're overreaching there.  Taste certainly *does* count, and it
counts in this forum as much as in any--perhaps more so even,
sometimes.  Good programming, you see, really is as much an art as
it is a science or technical discipline--especially when it comes
to matters of design, which I believe was the topic in question.
Careful attention to human factors is indispensable.

Oh, taste might not count so much for all people at all times, but
it certainly does count here some of the time, depending perhaps
on who you are--by which I mean depending upon what you're trying
to do.  You might say that it's merely a matter of "taste" and
therefore "out of bounds" that one should make a judgment call
regarding complexity.  You like complexity; that's your preference.
I don't think it's a good thing, and that's *my* preference (even
though it's a design sin I myself am somewhat prone to falling
into).

Now if you go look at Perl, you'll see that shirking complexity and
sweeping the horrors out from under the compiler's domain and into
the poor programmer's cubicle--as you appear wont to do--is contrary
to *Perl's* preference.  So, no, I certainly don't believe taste
in clarity and simplicity of design is out of bounds.  

In particular, when Larry himself is the one deciding that some
proposed approach is too complicated to be added to Perl, even
though this is merely based upon his taste then it most certainly
*does* lie within the proper purview of this forum.  After all, it
was his taste that got us where we are today.  So yes, taste certainly
does count, especially when you're Larry.  I hope that it counts
for the rest of us, too, because if we disdain to consider taste,
then surely Perl's own taste will become unpleasant to the tongue.

Left to ourselves, Ilya, neither you nor I am ever going to create
anything a tenth as nice as Perl.  That's because both of us like
things that are just too complicated to be useful and popular by
the simple folk who get so much out of Perl.  Although I harbor
some hope that I fall into a complexity zone an order of magnitude
simpler when compared to your own idiosyncratically tortuous
predilections, even so, let me be the first to admit how often I
miss the shortest and most diagonal route until this should be
pointed out to me.  But at least when this simple path *is* illuminated
(sometimes in conjunction with a virtual cuff to the head to make
me see the light), I'm more than happy to walk it.  I wish it were
likewise with you, but I don't know how you'll ever overcome your
own nature to complexify.  

While I have your attention, thank you very much for your misplaced
attempt to condemn my writing as "mere prose".  I cheerfully embrace
your would-be term of disrespect and convert it instead into a matter 
of pride.  Prose, you see, is something I rather like; I enjoy
writing prose, and I very much enjoy reading it.  So I shall bear
your accusation of prose not as a scarlet letter of shame upon my
breast, but as the shining badge of honor I have chosen to make it.
After all, without prose, I would be left to write only equations,
which would annoy me to write, or else to write only poetry, which
would annoy you even more to read than it would me to write.

Since you were apparently unable or unwilling to understand my point
as it was delicately put to you previously, clad as it was in gentle
allegory to avoid damaging your feelings with so direct a statement
as you are now about to read, let me this time be perfectly clear.
What I was saying was simply that you yourself tend strongly toward
overdesign in the "way too darned complicated" way, and that you
should at every possible turn resist this temptation, lest Perl be
made into something fit for use only by those few others in the
world afflicted with your own peculiar penchant for complexity.

--tom

    "Make is like Pascal.  Everyone likes it so much they can't
     resist changing it." 		    	    --Dennis

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