Conversation

it’s amazing how much this tweet exploded, but even more amazing how fast people jumped to the “expressive power is meaningless” conclusion.

Quote Tweet

this comment from /r/haskell manages to summarize a point I have tried and failed to make (to myself) in 100 times as many words.

Show this thread

the point was not that expressive power isn’t important, just that most people aren’t thinking about that when the house is burning down.

and while expressive power can give users better tools to manage software complexity, expressiveness is not the *same* as maintainability.

these things have tradeoffs. unit tests and rigid types make refactoring much safer, but sometimes also cement bad architectural decisions.

I would rather refactor my way out of poor architectural choices with the assistance of types though, rather than without.

Replying to

and

I agree that they are not sufficient for a good design, but they are a useful design tool nonetheless. Even if they get in the way at times.