Re: "Usability" (was Re: Map iteration and modification)

[Niklas Holsti <niklas.holsti@tidorum.invalid>]

On 2024-01-06 9:03, Randy Brukardt wrote:
> "Lawrence D'Oliveiro" <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote in message
> news:unafcg$bpv5$7@dont-email.me...
>> On Thu, 4 Jan 2024 20:00:37 -0600, Randy Brukardt wrote:
>>
>>> "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> wrote in message
>>> news:un64o3$3krch$1@dont-email.me...
>>>>>
>>>>>> Usability always trumps performance.
>>>>>
>>>>> That's the philosophy of languages like Python, not Ada.
>>>>
>>>> Ah, this is why Python is totally unusable? (:-))
>>>
>>> I would tend to argue that it is indeed the case that you get dubious
>>> results when you put usability first. ...
>>> http://www.rrsoftware.com/html/blog/consequences.html
>>
>> Without reading that, I would never have understood "usability" to mean
>> "ease of writing". I learned from early on in my programming career that
>> readability was more important than writability. So "using" a language
>> doesn't end with writing the code: you then have to test and debug it--
>> basically lick it into shape--then maintain it afterwards.
> 
> Usability is of course not just ease-of-writing, but a lot of people tend to
> co-mingle the two. For readability, too little information can be just as
> bad as too much. For writability, the less you have to write, the better.


I feel that is too narrow a definition of writability (and perhaps you 
did not intend it as a definition). Before one can start typing code, 
one has to decide what to write -- which language constructs to use. A 
systematically constructed, regular language like Ada makes that mental 
effort easier, even if it results in more keystrokes; a plethora of 
special-case syntaxes and abbreviation possibilities makes it harder.

Perhaps "writability" should even be taken to cover the whole process of 
creating /correct/ code, and include all the necessary testing, 
debugging and corrections until correct code is achieved. Here of course 
Ada shines again, with so many coding errors caught at compile time.