Path: csiph.com!newsfeed.hal-mli.net!feeder3.hal-mli.net!newsfeed.hal-mli.net!feeder1.hal-mli.net!newsfeed.xs4all.nl!newsfeed3.news.xs4all.nl!xs4all!post.news.xs4all.nl!not-for-mail
MIME-Version: 1.0
In-Reply-To: <62rhla-r1p1.ln1@ozzie.tundraware.com>
References: <7b97786a-2aaf-454c-8c3a-1c19d20d4345@googlegroups.com> <op.w6ihgyq7a8ncjz@gnudebeest> <2373cb88-c3e8-46ee-bf0c-82bb69c97226@googlegroups.com> <5284393c$0$29975$c3e8da3$5496439d@news.astraweb.com> <c6087b92-e2bf-4ca5-94cf-7fe332998113@googlegroups.com> <528464af$0$29971$c3e8da3$5496439d@news.astraweb.com> <d6286518-ebce-4488-90c3-298c97a16a46@googlegroups.com> <5285d8f4$0$29975$c3e8da3$5496439d@news.astraweb.com> <62rhla-r1p1.ln1@ozzie.tundraware.com>
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 02:42:58 +1100
Subject: Re: PyMyth: Global variables are evil... WRONG!
From: Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com>
To: python-list@python.org
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Precedence: list
Newsgroups: comp.lang.python
Message-ID: <mailman.2672.1384530181.18130.python-list@python.org>
Lines: 27
NNTP-Posting-Host: 2001:888:2000:d::a6
Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.python:59540

On Sat, Nov 16, 2013 at 2:26 AM, Tim Daneliuk <tundra@tundraware.com> wrote:
> On 11/15/2013 02:19 AM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>> Nobody sets out to*design*  a tangled mess. What normally happens is that
>> a tangled mess is the result of*lack of design*.
>
> This has been an interesting thread - to me anyway - but this bit
> above caught my eye.  People write programs for lots of reasons -
> personal, academic, scientific, and commercial - but I actually
> don't thing the resultant messes are caused by a "lack of
> design" most of the time.  In my experience they're caused by only two
> things:
>
> 2) An evolving set of requirements.

This can be an explanation for a lack of design, but it's no less a
lack. Sometimes, something just grows organically... from a nucleus of
good design, but undesigned growth. Maybe it's time it got redesigned;
or maybe redesigning would take too much effort and it's just not
worth spending that time on something that's going to be phased out by
the next shiny thing in a couple of years anyway. Doesn't change the
fact that the current state is not the result of design, but of
disorganized feature creep. That's not necessarily a terrible thing,
but Steven's point still stands: such lack of design often results in
a tangled mess, and a tangled mess can often be blamed on lack of
design.

ChrisA