purity vs. functionality
purity vs. functionality
Posted Jun 5, 2006 12:49 UTC (Mon) by coriordan (guest, #7544)In reply to: do we need it all in on utility? yes please! by vonbrand
Parent article: GNU grep's new features (Linux.com)
Sometimes there is a conflict between the goals of design purity, and giving the user what they expect. I don't think either goal is perfect, so decisions or compromises have to be made.
It's worth noting that that the problem with multiple implementations is not as big a problem as "design purity" people sometimes claim it is. Factoring the regex code out into a library and standardising on that (as GNU usually does), greatly reduces problems such as inconsistency.