🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <10278@yunexus.UUCP>, oz@yunexus.UUCP (Ozan Yigit) writes:
| In article <1990Apr24.132052.8149@talos.pm.com> kyle@cs.odu.edu writes:
| >I disagree.  Configurability has to take into account users'
| >preferences, yes, but at some point the programmer has to say
| >``no'' to keep the user from cutting his own throat.
| 
| Where do you draw the line ?? You appear to know where that line is, so do
| share with the rest of us. Incidentally, the point you bring up is the
| exact problem with all the so-called "extensible" software outside emacs.
| And the truth is, you almost certainly do not know more than anyone else 
| as to how to do "extensibility" without taking it to absurdity.
| People like Rob Pike (of Bell Labs) can very effectively argue why 
| things *should not* be extensible. Can you make serious and thought
| provoking arguments as to how extensible something should be?
| 

Hmmm ... must be "pot shots at Kyle" week. This must be the third time
this week I've read an article that sneered at someone else (twice at
Mr. Jones.) 

All I understood Kyle to be saying was that he felt that there were
valid situations where the programmer might choose to use yes_or_no
instead of y_or_n so as to hopefully prevent type ahead from
destroying important data. I think that this could qualify as a
"serious" if not necessarily "thought provoking" argument.

I'm sure Rob Pike can make some wonderful arguments as to why things
should not be extensible. But I'm also sure he wouldn't be dumb enough
to apply that argument to all software. 

Much of software should be designed for a specific purpose and tightly
coded and then left alone.  The emacs editor does not fall under this
category. It is simply too useful in too many situations for this to
apply. Not everyone is a power user, and so not everyone will like
emacs. There are other, non extensible editors for those people.

Quibbling over "how extensible" something should be is a waste of
time. It is possible to change the source code. It is possible to
substitute y or n instead of yes or no and it is possible to just live
with it and not get so excited.


-- 
Kim Letkeman    uunet!mitel!spock!kim