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I won’t @ them but limiting expressivity in order to limit cognitive load and keep codebases approachable is a totally legitimate move in language design. I’d even say essential. It’s all about balance, and expressivity _does_ have tradeoffs.

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@SeanTAllen

· Sep 2, 2018

Almost all the arguments I see against generics in go are pretty awful. "People might create abstractions I can't understand" is an awful argument. And that's the root of most argument I see. That's so broad that you can apply it to the base language itself. Don't @ me.

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Yehuda Katz

@wycats

Sep 3, 2018

In the case of generics, the cost of leaving out even simple generics has a high cognitive load cost. I have no problem with taking it slow and conservative; that's a reasonable place for them. But the koans and zealous arguments against generics disrupt the design process.

Brendan Zabarauskas

@brendanzab

Sep 3, 2018

I keep seeing references to 'koans', but never come across these wrt. generics. Do you have any examples?

Yehuda Katz

@wycats

Sep 3, 2018

These kinds of things twitter.com/davecheney/sta Also: - "less is exponentially more" - "simplicity cannot be added later" And others.

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and

Ahhh right. Yeah, I'm cool with saying 'it's a hard design problem', but it can be a challenge to communicate the nuance of this to the language users/fans. Same thing goes with Elm and bounded polymorphism.

10:18 PM · Sep 3, 2018Twitter Web Client

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and

I have no problem whatsoever with languages trying different spots on the curve-bending space. Interestingly, Rust's "koans", such as they are, all *encode* the Rust value for finding ways to bend tradeoff curves (the "X without Y" template). It helps with nuance, ime.

Brendan Zabarauskas

@brendanzab

Sep 3, 2018

Yeah, I guess I just get frustrated when designers fan the flames of that for quick marketing points, rather than working on demystifying the design process, and empowering the community be a part of that process.

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