From: Fielding, Roy (fielding@eBuilt.com)
Date: Sun Sep 10 2000 - 05:03:58 PDT
> "Worse is Better." Same old story.
>
> http://www.ai.mit.edu/docs/articles/good-news/subsection3.2.1.html
Bleh. Typical MIT arrogance.
> While I don't agree with Gabriel in all his points, it's still a
> compelling argument in its most abstract form. The list is endless:
> Lisp, Colecovision, Beta, Objective C, the Mac, the Transputer, Linda,
> Smalltalk, the Atari ATW boxes, Cogent Research, NeXT, etc. etc. etc.
> Best-of-breed tech is *never* top market leader. Why?
Because they aren't best-of-breed. None of those ever were. The problem
is that many people don't know how to value technology, not that the
winners have somehow lesser value. All designs have trade-offs. People
who bemoan the fate of a good design typically just ignore all of
the negative trade-offs that came with it.
> HTTP in particular is a shining example of Worse is Better. Or maybe a
> better way to put it would be "Good Enough is Good Enough."
Or maybe, "If you don't understand why it is better, it must be worse."
Another great leap of logic that doesn't lead to wisdom.
....Roy
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