The Parable of Mustache.js
writing.jan.io
writing.jan.io
This is how it's been done for many years in Java land, and it's good; really good. But it does come at a price: change is much, much slower, and eventually people might get impatient and just do their own thing.
The way it works now in Java land, is that a new idea or technology comes along (e.g. web sockets), some projects implement it with no spec, and a couple of years later (hopefully; it sometimes takes much longer) a spec is created, and you get lots of compatible implementations.
Sometimes you want to pull your hair out in frustration at the pace, but sometimes you're so glad to have 4 or 5 high-quality implementations for a standardized API to choose from.
We're still using Mustache.js for server side rendering at https://starthq.com even though we experimented with Hogan for a bit, but it proved to be less stable.
Agreed that hugs always win. Programmers especially need to give (and hopefully receive) more.
No.
Mature software tends to accumulate requirements ("1) must work and 2) must be fast and/or small"), that are different than the original requirements ("1) must work and 2) must be easy to modify because I'm still figuring it out").
When those requirements eventually become more important than the original ones, the way you code it changes to match. It's a natural progression.
Top-notch programmers find ways to keep all 3 requirements, to the extent permitted by the problem space.
Whatever job you're doing and open sourcing you can be proud of it.
I was trying for a joke (it is still funny in my head), no offence meant.