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> Ease of implementation over ease of use. It's the Unix Way™. Despite the claims in the "Worse is Better" paper, it ain't so. If the Mozilla people were interested in ease of implementation, they would be using thin wrappers around standard components so they didn't have to duplicate the components. If they were doing things the UNIX way, the different pieces of Mozilla would be separate programs. If they were doing things the UNIX way, it wouldn't be a mass of twisty classes that end up using WINS to resolve the proxy if it's not fully qualified EVEN ON UNIX. No, Mozilla is clearly an attempt to produce a "the right thing" system. The primary goal is completeness, followed by consistency and correctness. Simplicity never even shows up. The problem is the Common Lisp "big complex system scenario" (AKA "the great incomprehensible pile") is the end point of all "the right thing" systems that stay on the "the right thing" path. That's where Mozilla lives. As an aside... There's this myth embedded in the "worse is better" paper that there is an alternative to "the great incomprehensible pile". It's called "the diamond-like jewel scenario". I would argue that "the diamond-like jewel scenario" is always one of three things: 1. A trivial system that doesn't do much. Either a simple problem or a toy ystem. useful for education, but small enough that *any* approach would work. 2. A prototype for a "big complex system scenario" that hasn't grown up yet. 2. A west-coast system that hasn't gotten someone from MIT pissed off at it yet. Pretty much any system that someone from the east coast has called "worse is better" falls into this category, *including* UNIX. Mozilla's design goal was to look *precisely* the same on any platform. I think that's a lousy design goal, and you presumably agree, but it's what they wanted, and it's what they got. They did a pretty good job of it, really, and it's a pity that they did the wrong thing the right way.There's stuff above here
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