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1313ed01today at 10:52 AM3 repliesview on HN

When the first version came out, around the time I got my first job, it felt like everyone around me had read this book, and for a long time we were throwing around quotes from this book. Sadly after a few years it felt like the only thing that really stuck in the larger community was "Don't Repeat Yourself", which wasn't really something that at the time stood out as much more important than many of the other "rules".

My personal favorite was always the one about "English is just a programming language", but when I read the 20th anniversary edition that one seemed like it had been toned down? I did not go back to find the original one to compare, but the way I remember it it was pretty hardcore about keeping text as text and using tools like for programming (use macros in text to avoid repeating yourself etc).

Overall the 20th anniversary did feel a bit less idealistic? I guess for a "pragmatic" book that makes sense, but I remember the original like it was making stronger arguments for or against things. I really liked the (anti-)IDE chapter, or the parts on the importance of learning how to use a good text editor well, for instance, but now they basically cut that out. Did give me the impression that they were trying to be down with the kids at times.


Replies

tantalictoday at 3:54 PM

Twenty years ago, I was strongly anti IDE and pro text editor. In the last ~10 years or so text editors have gained features previously only found in IDEs and IDEs have improved their performance and brought in features from text editors. I would argue the distinction between text editors and IDEs at this point is academic.

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marcosdumaytoday at 1:55 PM

Well, cutting the IDE out may happen because IDEs improved.

AFAIK, all the hate from IDEs at the time came from the way Eclipse and the Microsoft ones work, and all the love came from the Borland ones. As Borland failed, the "correct" opinion became obvious, but it was actually only correct by accident and didn't reflect any inherent properties of the software.

begueradjtoday at 1:46 PM

That's because being strongly opinionated about anything nowadays is viewed down.

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