The Zen of Jer Lang

The Zen of Jer Lang

SuperJer
Websiteman

2005 Mar 20 • 6629
Lately I've been using the phrase "this violates the Zen of Jer Lang" whenever I see code that irks me.

To be fair I have to actually write down what the Zen is. Right?

Jer Lang is the name for my programming language that doesn't actually exist. That's why it's so good. It doesn't have any faults if it doesn't exist. Right?

The Zen of Jer Lang is a play on the Zen of Python:

ZenOfPython said:
Beautiful is better than ugly.
Explicit is better than implicit.
Simple is better than complex.
Complex is better than complicated.
Flat is better than nested.
Sparse is better than dense.
Readability counts.
Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules.
Although practicality beats purity.
Errors should never pass silently.
Unless explicitly silenced.
In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess.
There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it.
Although that way may not be obvious at first unless you're Dutch.
Now is better than never.
Although never is often better than *right* now.
If the implementation is hard to explain, it's a bad idea.
If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a good idea.
Namespaces are one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!
 
 
 
2016 Feb 18 at 13:49 PST — Ed. 2016 Feb 29 at 16:23 PST
SuperJer
Websiteman

2005 Mar 20 • 6629
Things that are the same should look the same. Things that are different should look different.

This is the most often violated aphorism. I think 50% of all features across languages violate this right off the bat. Or they are intended to help you violate this. This is the main contributor to why everything pretty much sucks.
 
 
 
2016 Feb 18 at 13:52 PST — Ed. 2016 Feb 18 at 13:55 PST
ascv

2014 Apr 22 • 11
SuperJer said:
Things that are the same should look the same. Things that are different should look different.

This is the most often violated aphorism.


To be fair, it is the only aphorism currently.

SuperJer said:
I think 50% of all features across languages violate this right off the bat.


50.000024% IMHO
 
 
 
2016 Feb 19 at 13:10 PST
SuperJer
Websiteman

2005 Mar 20 • 6629
I just haven't told you what the other ones are yet! Hold your horses.
 
 
 
2016 Feb 20 at 12:52 PST
SuperJer
Websiteman

2005 Mar 20 • 6629
Hold your horses.

This is the second most commonly violated aphorism, Josh.
 
 
 
2016 Feb 20 at 12:53 PST
SuperJer
Websiteman

2005 Mar 20 • 6629
OK. Here's what I've come up with so far. It's a work in progress but I need somewhere to update/amend it.

Things that are the same should look the same. Things that are different should look different.

Not helping is better than pretending to help.

Pick something! Establish conventions for meaningless decisions. Letting people make meaningless decisions is not "freedom."

Design for people, not for tools. If it is clear and unambiguous to a human then the same can be true for tools. But the reverse is not true.

The freedom to do cool things is less important than the freedom to not have to do sucky things.

Consistency is more beautiful than beauty.

Abstractions are expensive and confusing, pretty much by definition. Only abstract when the payoff is big enough.
 
 
 
2016 Feb 29 at 16:40 PST — Ed. 2016 Feb 29 at 16:48 PST
phoenix_r

2009 May 13 • 905
17 ₧
SuperJer said:
The freedom to do cool things is less important than the freedom to not have to do sucky things.

Seems a little Cathedral v Bazaar to me.
BOO
 
 
 
2016 Mar 10 at 01:53 PST
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