I'm back

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Wednesday, November 14, 2012 07:29:34 H. S. Teoh wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 12:51:45AM +0100, deadalnix wrote:
> > Le 13/11/2012 20:13, Jonathan M Davis a écrit :
> > >On Tuesday, November 13, 2012 09:45:17 H. S. Teoh wrote:
> > >>Unfortunately, using ranges in their most general sense is looking
> > >>like a pipe dream to me right now, and I'm ready to just move on.
> > >
> > >The reality of the matter is that there are limits to any
> > >abstraction. In order to make it take more use cases and situations
> > >into account, it must become increasingly complicated, and eventually
> > >the abstraction becomes complicated enough that it's hard to use for
> > >even basic cases.
> 
> In that case, I argue that the abstraction is a leaky one, and needs to
> be improved/replaced.

Most (all?) abstractions are leaky on some level. But the real problem is simply
that to make it so that you can do absolutely everything with complete control,
it becomes too complicated to be useable in the normal case. It's pretty much 
inevitable that you have to cut off some use cases or it's going to be too 
complicated. The trick is figuring out how to make it work with as many use 
cases as reasonably possible and still be quite useable in the average case, 
and that's not necessarily an easy balance to strike.

- Jonathan M Davis