Worse Is Better - The MIT Approach

The MIT Approach

Gabriel contrasted his philosophy with what he called the "MIT approach" (also known as "the Right Thing"), which he described as follows. Contrasts are in bold:

Simplicity

The design must be simple, both in implementation and interface. It is more important for the interface to be simple than the implementation.

Correctness

The design must be correct in all observable aspects. Incorrectness is simply not allowed.

Consistency

The design must be consistent. A design is allowed to be slightly less simple and less complete to avoid inconsistency. Consistency is as important as correctness.

Completeness

The design must cover as many important situations as is practical. All reasonably expected cases must be covered. Simplicity is not allowed to overly reduce completeness.