Have Emacs - Will Hack
December 20, 2011
Programming considered harmful
Topic: Software engineering
- gotos make it possible to write bad programs
- threads make it possible to write bad programs
- global variables make it possible to write bad programs
- anonymous functions make it possible to write bad programs
- macros make it possible to write bad programs
- mutable variables make it possible to write bad programs
- continuations make it possible to write bad programs
- dynamic scoping makes it possible to write bad programs
- objects make it possible to write bad programs
- recursion makes it possible to write bad programs
- ...
Take this argument far enough, and you are left with
the S-K
combinators, and now it is impossible to write good programs.
Having few features in a programming language is a fault, not a
virtue. The bigger fault lies in failing to provide the language with
the facilities to be extended
with new features.
No amount of language design can force a programmer to write
clear programs.
--Guy Steele & Gerald Sussman