[Haskell-cafe] the problem of design by negation

[Michael Mossey]

This is not directly related to Haskell, but it's a thought that occurred 
to me after exposure to the Haskell community.

I've spent most of the past 15 years doing scientific programming. The lead 
software architect and software managers are using good software 
engineering practice, though (this is *scientific* programming, not 
*programming by scientists*, ha ha). But, there is a particular culture in 
my company that has become more obvious to me by contrast to the Haskell 
community.

I call it "design by negation." When asked to justify his design, the lead 
software architect explains everything that *wouldn't* work. "We couldn't 
have a unique key for every entry because blah blah blah. We couldn't use a 
garbage collector because blah blah. We couldn't write a sugar layer 
because then you have to document it separately blah blah." So the chosen 
design seems to be the only thing left after eliminating everything you 
can't do.

I want to aspire to "positive design." I want to list the goals, and think 
of design as making clever choices that meet all the goals.

I don't mean to suggest that design is never constrained. It often is. But 
it's a mindset I'm talking about. I don't like this mindset of design by 
negation.

-Mike