[Gllug] Dealing with "Word-Only" organisations

[Nix]

On 11 Nov 2010, David Damerell uttered the following:
> Now I cannot claim to be a veteran developer. Far from it. But one
> thing I am all too familiar with from the field of roguelike
> development is the young fellow who just learned about OO in the last
> few years and rushes in making everything a class whether it likes it
> or not, because then writing a roguelike will be as easy as falling
> off a log.

Everyone has done this (though not necessarily in the domain of
roguelikes). I did it when I was about sixteen.

> Generally at this point comedy ensues.

A couple of years later, when the design has to change for the first
time, comedy ensues. Flexible, robust, not-too-abstract-nor-too-
low-level, not-too-opaque-nor-too-translucent API design is *hard*.
It's one of those things that, so far, cannot be taught: it has to be
learned by making all the mistakes yourself. Most people never try, and
end up incapable of designing good APIs. (That doesn't stop them from
designing APIs, of course, but you end up with ugly horrors like all too
much of the JDK.)
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