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   John Regehr (regehr@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 12-Jan-2025 15:36:02 JST John Regehr

   totally agree with this and there are SO many examples of tools where 99% of uses are adapting an existing program/config file instead of creating a new one from scratch

   https://blog.yossarian.net/2025/01/10/Be-aware-of-the-Makefile-effect

   like think about the last time you started a LaTeX document from a blank file...

   • Jeff "never puts away anything, especially oven mitts" Cliff, Bringer of Nightmares 🏴‍☠️🦝🐙 🇱🇧🧯 🇨🇦🐧 and MortSinyx like this.
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     John Regehr (regehr@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 25-Jan-2025 10:33:56 JST John Regehr

     in reply to

     I said it in a reply thread but might as well repeat it here: the fix is languages that support proper abstraction of things that you do often, including design pattern sorta things

     Jeff "never puts away anything, especially oven mitts" Cliff, Bringer of Nightmares 🏴‍☠️🦝🐙 🇱🇧🧯 🇨🇦🐧 likes this.
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     John Regehr (regehr@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 25-Jan-2025 10:33:56 JST John Regehr

     in reply to

     the dilemma facing programming languages, as I see it, is that they fall into two categories:
     - languages that can be rapidly and radically changed in response to problems (such as failures of abstraction) encountered in real use. but these are the languages without large load-bearing code bases, so they don't get many resources
     - languages that have large, load-bearing code bases, which receive adequate engineering power, but not enough to overcome the legacy code problem

     Jeff "never puts away anything, especially oven mitts" Cliff, Bringer of Nightmares 🏴‍☠️🦝🐙 🇱🇧🧯 🇨🇦🐧 likes this.
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     John Regehr (regehr@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 25-Jan-2025 10:34:06 JST John Regehr

     in reply to

     when people mistake one of these for the other, we get spectacular problems such as the Python 2/3 debacle

     Jeff "never puts away anything, especially oven mitts" Cliff, Bringer of Nightmares 🏴‍☠️🦝🐙 🇱🇧🧯 🇨🇦🐧 likes this.
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     John Regehr (regehr@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 25-Jan-2025 10:34:13 JST John Regehr

     in reply to

     • Leonard Ritter
     • Daniel Gibson

     @lritter @Doomed_Daniel the fix isn’t defaults, the fix is proper abstraction of things that occur often so they are ready for easy reuse

     Jeff "never puts away anything, especially oven mitts" Cliff, Bringer of Nightmares 🏴‍☠️🦝🐙 🇱🇧🧯 🇨🇦🐧 likes this.
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     Leonard Ritter (lritter@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Saturday, 25-Jan-2025 10:34:14 JST Leonard Ritter

     in reply to

     • Daniel Gibson

     @Doomed_Daniel @regehr "However, at the point of design, this suggests a tool design (or tool application) that is flawed" <- this i disagree with. this situation is inevitable the longer you use a tool. you can not fix it.

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     Daniel Gibson (doomed_daniel@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Saturday, 25-Jan-2025 10:34:15 JST Daniel Gibson

     in reply to

     • Leonard Ritter

     @lritter @regehr
     That's not the premise, the article literally says
     "the title is “be aware,” not “beware.” The Makefile effect is not inherently bad! It’s something to be aware of when designing tools and systems"

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     Leonard Ritter (lritter@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Saturday, 25-Jan-2025 10:34:16 JST Leonard Ritter

     in reply to

     @regehr i disagree with the premise that this is bad. tools that can be used from scratch have just baked in defaults that happen to match. but defaults are subject to fashion, and as it changes, so grows the boilerplate. so you make a new tool to hide the boilerplate. will the situation ever settle?