Going Meta
I bet Rich and Waters are smarter then us, but they got seduced into
going meta, which is the CS equivalent of "the dark side of the force".
CS folks are always trying to build tools for something before they
understand it. They are always trying to solve abstract problems
before being able to solve the concrete ones. Abstractions are great,
but you have to have experience with the concrete before you can
understand them, let alone invent them. That is why we should focus
on understanding particular patterns before making a theory for
patterns in general.
Ralph Johnson (johnson@cs.uiuc.edu), responsing to a discussion about
Rich and Waters' research on programming cliches;
PATTERNS-DISCUSSION mailing list, 13Jun95
