The (superlow)quality of software (was Re: Python Popularity: Questions and Comments)

[Michael Hudson]

Oleg Broytmann <phd at phd.pp.ru> writes:

>    My original point was that: UNIX and TCP/IP (and all that) are here not
> because of quality, but... I don't know why, really. Look, what is better:
> UNIX or (insert your OS here)? Pascal or C? x86 or 68000? Perl or Python?
> Still Perl is more popular than Python, x86 is more popular that any
> processor, and (insert that hateful OS) is more popular than UNIX.
>    It seems that society and especially business choose not the best, but
> worst alternative. So if we want to make Python more popular we should make
> it worse (well, I am kidding... to some extent).
> 
>    Actually I personnaly don't want to increase Python and Zope popularity
> beyond some bounds (this time I am not kidding). Popularity is the hallmark
> of mediocrity. And what is worse, popularity will (actually, already's)
> draw windoze lamers with all their idiotic questions (who needs to read the
> FAQs and docs, really?), and the best newsgroup comp.lang.python starts
> looking more and more like comp.lang.p*.misc.

You have read Richard Gabriel's "Worse is Better" paper, haven't you?

Cheers,
M.