| I think they're going for a "The Codeless Code"[1] type of koan. The idea is to express through something that may seem slightly illogical or counterintuitive an insight. > Without arguments, your comment has as much substance as me replying: Yes, what you substituted is equivalent, and they likely could have written that to the exact same effect. > It is not like "Ensure" would be a single-use thing. "Ensure" here is a utility type definition, which is what a "function in the world of types" would be. There's a few ways to interpret the stanza. The way I interpreted it is that the beginner uses a library to provide the definitions, the advanced programmer just writes their own definitions inline as needed, and the master programmer uses a library for the definitions they need (whether written by themself or someone else). In that respect, I think you're both in agreement. For what it's worth, I think comments like these are generally beneficial, if maybe I prefer at least a line of context. That they can be interpreted differently and may require a bit of thought to map onto the current context can sometimes allow people to view their beliefs from a slight remove where more introspection is possible, or spur interesting tangents to explore. Both of those are generally beneficial in a forum like this, IMO. 1: http://thecodelesscode.com/contents |