Prompts for “The Rise of Worse is Better”
Due on Wednesday, May 4 by 10pm
Read “The Rise of Worse is Better” by Richard Gabriel in the course packet and answer the following questions.
- What is this essay even about? It is worth noting that when Gabriel published† this essay it upset a lot of people, partly because he was an important member of the Lisp community (he was on the Common Lisp standards committee). Even today, people tend to either love or hate his argument.
- The language with the biggest and most active programming community today is Javascript. Is Javascript “Worse is Better” or “The Right Thing”? Spend a little time gathering evidence to support your claim.
- Which school of thought appeals to you? Why? Thinking charitably about the opposing philosophy, what lessons can you takeaway to ensure that your own work is successful?
† In reality, the essay was found in Gabriel’s files at Lucid, Inc. and recirculated by Jamie Zawinski, then a programmer at Lucid. Zawinski later went on to write substantial parts of the seminal web browser, Netscape Navigator.
Length
Your entire response should be short: at least 200 words and no more than 400 words total.
Submission Instructions
Commit your response to your short responses repository. You must commit both your .tex source file and your generated .pdf. You are required to use LaTeX to typeset your response.
FILE MUST BE NAMED reading09.pdf.