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by brlewis 2428 days ago
>The underlying problem IMHO is that these frameworks are unwilling to create major breaking changes (since that would hamper marketability) so it's easier to just shove things into the unused edges of the semantics space until they becomes a hodge podge of a million ways of doing the same thing.

Sounds like you want Mithril, but keep in mind that backward compatibility and marketability are, in fact, useful features.
1 comments
lhorie 2428 days ago
> backward compatibility and marketability are, in fact, useful features

They are (and FWIW, the Stroustrup quote[1] is quite applicable here). I'm merely pointing out that feature creep leads to bloat/complexity which lead to people to complain, and that feature creep also leads to marketability (which is a reason why mainstream language spec documents typically have hundreds of pages). Personally I think this pattern is a problem, but I don't know if anyone has managed to figure out a solution.

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/226225-there-are-only-two-k...

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brlewis 2428 days ago
Ha! The HN feature of emphasizing comments and de-emphasizing their authors worked too well. I did not notice I was replying to the original author of Mithril. Hi Leo.

If "long copy sells" is the reason why feature creep leads to marketability, then maybe an abundance of examples would help.

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