Wadler’s Law (extended to Clojure)
Philip Wadler is a PLT thinker of the highest order. In addition to the mind-boggling insights into the art of programming, his cutting wit1 is second to none. In late 1996 he unveiled “Wadler’s law”, described2 as:
In any language design, the total time spent discussing a feature in this list is proportional to two raised to the power of its position.
Every language is affected3 by Wadler’s Law and Clojure is no different. Therefore, I humbly present4 the following:
0. Clojure semantics
1. Prefix notation
2. The positioning of parenthesis
3. The elimination of parenthesis
this post inspired by a tweet from James Iry
:f
-
Very often I’ve found that Haskellers have the most acute sense of humor. I wonder if it’s Haskell that attracts this type or if it creates them. ↩
-
Revised from an earlier version proposed in 1992. More information can be found at http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Wadlers_Law ↩
-
Although most follow the original four points. ↩
-
This list could probably apply to most Lisp-derived languages. ↩
Related posts:
No Comments, Comment or Ping
Reply to “Wadler’s Law (extended to Clojure)”