[d110af5ccf]

> For reference, vim

Vim is an incredibly useful tool but I've seen frequent complaints about its codebase. Competitors with significantly higher code quality exist (ex Kakoune).

> > don't believe ... inevitably leads to

> It does. It literally does. Try writing your own operating system, or font parser, or graphics engine.

There are working examples of such and the code appears to be significantly simpler than the status quo. I'm far from an expert here but to the best of my understanding feature creep combined with maintaining backwards compatibility is to blame for a significant amount of current complexity.

Consider that if you rewrite a low level API with the benefit of hindsight, everything that uses that API has to be updated. Often multiple distinct APIs will be involved though, not just one. Look at the difficulty the Linux ecosystem has had gaining full support for Wayland, which necessitated the likes of PipeWire and a number of other new ways of doing things, and has been "nearly ready" for production for how many years now?

[sangnoir]

> There are working examples of such and the code appears to be significantly simpler than the status quo

Status quo is bloated -> someone rewrites a simple replacement -> becomes popular -> "Can you cover this reasonable use case, it's not currently supported" -> repeated previous step several hundred times -> oh fuck, the "lightweight" rewrite has become the bloated status quo -> GOTO step one

[titzer]

In some sense, this is WAI. Hopefully along the cycle, people learn to build better architectures that are modular, scriptable, customizable, and not giant monolithic piles. If things were more scriptable, then I as a user could script them how I want creating of a wall of my own "UI" and then swapping out the backends as I see fit. In my 25 years or so programming, I wish I had done this more; scripts for everything. Learn how to use my own scripts and only adjust them when stuff breaks/is swapped out. In retrospect, I have been buffeted by the whims of UI designers for decades, and I'm kinda mad about it.

[nexuist]

> There are working examples of such

For whom do they work for? The author and maybe a small group of Internet hobbyists? When you have to support 3 billion daily active users like iOS or Windows does, that lightweight codebase isn't so lightweight anymore.

And sure, Prime Video isn't Windows, but it still has over 200 million international subscribers that it needs to handle. It's definitely not something you can write in an afternoon.