Perlis' Epigrams (1982)
cs.yale.edu
cs.yale.edu
```sh curl -s -L http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/perlis-alan/quotes.html | tr "\n" " " | grep -o -e "[0-9]\+\.[^\<]*" | sed -e "s/^[0-9]\+\. //" | sort -R | head -n1 | cowsay ```
It became a somewhat loved thing to have.
This is a really great point. Along the same vein: modularity has a cost too. A cost in terms of communication. The benefits of modularity should be weighed against this cost.
We're really good at talking about new patterns to increase modularity, in particular in the OOP tradition (always hide data, every data structure is its own little module with a public interface). We're very bad at talking about the costs associated with these.
The width is defined as the size of the interface (the cost) and the depth as the functionality that it buys you or maybe the complexity it hides (I'm recalling from memory, don't have the book at hand).
A file system that exposes the file interface (as in Unix) is given as a positive example. It has few functions and buys you, well, everything a file system offers.
These days, Dave is in Japan. Co-Director, Cyber Civilization Research Center and Distinguished Professor, Keio University Tokyo Japan ------------------------------------------ ip: ip Permalink: https://ip.topicbox.com/groups/ip/T5d02d25c6d0cdd1c-Mccf10bb... Delivery options: https://ip.topicbox.com/groups/ip/subscription