D is dead

[Wyatt]

On Thursday, 23 August 2018 at 11:02:31 UTC, Mike Franklin wrote:
> On Thursday, 23 August 2018 at 10:41:03 UTC, Jonathan M Davis 
> wrote:
>
>> Languages pretty much always get more complicated over time, 
>> and unless we're willing to get rid of more stuff, it's 
>> guaranteed to just become more complicated over time rather 
>> than less.
>
> "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is 
> nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take 
> away." -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
>
> I think that's actually a mistranslation from what he actually 
> said, but it's still quite good.

Liberties were taken there, but it's probably more applicable to 
this situation than a lot of the times C/Unix beards try to play 
it as though their tech of choice is beyond culpability.

For context, he's talking about the process of aeronautical 
engineering and the thrust of this statement is really commentary 
on effort and elegance.

A little before that, he talks about the grand irony that so much 
thoughtful effort and design goes into refining things so they're 
as simple as possible.  But "simple" is relative to the thing and 
the task (my understanding is that "simple" kind of conflates 
"reliable" here, too).  So this is where he rightly acknowledges 
that the process of refinement isn't a waste for what it removes 
even though it's often much greater than the effort to create 
something in the first place.

It's wrapped in a broader understanding that you have to have 
something that works at all before you can streamline it.

-Wyatt