Worse is Better Philosophy: Difference between revisions

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


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, spec 1
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 2]].


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/Growable-is-better.html

Revision as of 02:32, 4 February 2021

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.

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 2.

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.