Re: [dev] Re: Worse is better: Plan9 and Linux?

From: Peter Wiehe <peter_AT_pwiehe.de>
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2019 17:48:09 +0100

Hello Laslo!

Am 30. Oktober 2019 17:38:27 MEZ schrieb Laslo Hunhold <dev_AT_frign.de>:
>On Wed, 30 Oct 2019 16:02:54 +0100
>Peter Wiehe <peter_AT_pwiehe.de> wrote:
>
>Dear Peter,
>
>> I didn't have simple programs in mind when I said "fast hack".
>> Instead of fast hacks I could call it "direct coding with minimal
>> design". Maybe that's not much of a difference. I think often
>> developers themselves call it a fast hack. Sorry if that's
>> disrespectful. I try to avoid that term in the future.
>>
>> So what do you think of Plan9 when you say simple UI programs are
>> harder to maintain?
>
>central to every program, I think, are data structures. If you manage
>to do that right, everything else seems to fall into place. That's at
>least the experience I had over the last few years.
>
>Many people think that the UI somehow reflects data structures, but
>often the opposite is true. Many people that develop software with
>"simple UIs" often have a UI-driven approach, yielding horrible data
>structures and lots of hacky code as they try to compensate the bad
>data structures.
>
>If you ask me, if you find your data structures to be flawed and you
>cannot fix it, you might as well start again and redefine your data
>structures. This does not mean that your interface has to change, just
>the internal representation.
>
>To answer your question in a way: Little code does not mean little
>time, the opposite is true. It often takes a lot of time,
>reconsideration and rewriting to formulate code that is short, elegant
>and easy to maintain and extend.
>
>With best regards
>
>Laslo

So my question to you is:
how do you put Linux and Plan9 into this scala?
(I get the feeling you deliberately don't want to understand my question.)

Kind regards
Peter
Received on Wed Oct 30 2019 - 17:48:09 CET