4 Matching Annotations
  1. Dec 2024
    1. https://web.archive.org/web/20241201071240/https://www.dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html

      Richard P Gabriel documents the history behind 'worse is better' a talk he held in Cambridge in #1989/ The role of LISP in the then AI wave stands out to me. And the emergence of C++ on Unix and OOP. I remember doing a study project (~91) w Andre en Martin in C++ v2 because we realised w OOP it would be easier to solve and the teacher thought it would be harder for us to use a diff language.

      via via via Chris Aldrich in h. to Christian Tietze, https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/comment/22075/#Comment_22075 to Christine Lemmer-Webber https://dustycloud.org/blog/how-decentralized-is-bluesky/ to here.

      -[ ] find overv of AI history waves and what tech / languages drove them at the time

    1. But perhaps that's too ambitious to suggest taking on for either camp. And maybe it doesn't matter insofar as the real lessons of Worse is Better is that both first mover advantage on a quicker and popular solution outpaces the ability to deliver a more correct and robust position, and entrenches the less ideal system. It can be really challenging for a system that is in place to change itself from its present position, which is a bit depressing.

      Succinct description of worse is better

      The 'worse' bit moves you along in the adjacent possible paths of the [[Evolutionair vlak van mogelijkheden 20200826185412]], where as the 'better' bit puts you at a peak in the evol landscape from which you can't move and hard to get to for others.

      via via Chris Aldrich in h. pointing to Christian Tietze comment https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/comment/22075/#Comment_22075 pointing to this Christine Lemmer-Webber post, following it onwards to https://www.dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html by Richard P. Gabriel

  2. Nov 2024
    1. Busy week coding -- but there was one delightful article that led me down a small rabbit hole of Richard P Gabriel's writing about "worse is better" from 1989/90. The hub for this idea is here: Richard P. Gabriel: "Worse Is Better", https://www.dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html And I found it via: Christine Lemmer-Webber: "How decentralized is Bluesky really?", 2024-11-22, https://dustycloud.org/blog/how-decentralized-is-bluesky/ The idea of "worse is better" got connected to Gall's Law, and loosely relates to why idealistic, big software rewrites fail so often. And why things that are imperfect but provide value proliferate.
  3. Feb 2016
    1. In my professional career I’ve noticed that doing “The Right Thing” is not always the best path. That phenomenon is called The Rise of “Worse is Better” and it can be observed in many things including C, Unix, Windows, JavaScript… Seems like New Jersey approach wins out more than it looses in a real world. (Be a virus, spread and than the pressure will rise to better the game).