[TUHS] On Bloat and the Idea of Small Specialized Tools

[Peter Weinberger (温博格) via TUHS]

There is a common problem in our field. When something (a command, a
language, a library, etc) has a flaw, we say to ourselves, "This is
not good. If we remove this flaw things will be better."  as if it's
an obvious truth.

Sometimes it is true, but it's frequently questionable, and all too
often it's just wrong. We have no commonly accepted way of balancing
complexity and function; usually complexity wins. When AI takes my job
it will be because it's better at dealing with the mindless complexity
of enormous APIs (and command-line flags).


On Sat, May 18, 2024 at 2:08 PM Douglas McIlroy
<douglas.mcilroy at dartmouth.edu> wrote:
>
> I just revisited this ironic echo of Mies van der Rohe's aphorism, "Less is more".
>        % less --help | wc
>       298
> Last time I looked, the line count was about 220. Bloat is self-catalyzing.
>
> What prompted me to look was another disheartening discovery. The "small special tool" Gnu diff has a 95-page manual!  And it doesn't cover the option I was looking up (-h). To be fair, the manual includes related programs like diff3(1), sdiff(1) and patch(1), but the original manual for each fit on one page.
>
> Doug