Worse is Better Philosophy

Intro

Something that just works, is bare bones, is better for wide adoption than a polished product that takes long to get to market. Put in another way, User Interface comes after Functionality. Aka the New Jersey Approach.

The property that makes for Worse-is-Better is modularity - easy improvability and adaptability. This is also known as Growable-is-Better.

OSE Case

In the OSE case, since we publish early and often, and make in-progress work accessible for the reason of unleashed collaboration and cultural creation - we de facto operate on the Growable-is-Better version of worse-is-better. We avoid the worse-is-better stage, because our initial design is designed with growability, according to OSE Specifications, in particular, OSE Spec 3.

https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/courses/cs181/projects/2010-11/WorseIsBetter/index.php/Growable-is-better.html

https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/courses/cs181/projects/2010-11/WorseIsBetter/index.php/Worse-is-better.html

Notable Examples

• Note that Linux was explicitly built on the worse is better concept when it comes to its monolithic kernel design - a known bad design that works better in practice. Stallman proposed a modular kernel - and 3 decades later - product hasn't shipped yet.

OSE Case

• The OSE Filter includes worse is better. In the OSE case, growable-is-better is achieved by modular design. For example, Incremental Housing is an example of worse-is-better.

Internal Links

• Harm Reduction
• Suburban Housing Environmental-Harm Reduction Policy Agenda