Comments on: The case for high level components http://almaer.com/blog/the-case-for-high-level-components blogging about life, the universe, and everything tech Sat, 08 Sep 2012 07:06:53 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Michal http://almaer.com/blog/the-case-for-high-level-components/comment-page-1#comment-19158 Michal Sat, 19 Feb 2005 15:51:12 +0000 http://almaer.com/blog2/the-case-for-high-level-components#comment-19158 Components make sense everywhere. If in some domain they are not seen as something useful - this is just a sign of immaturity of that domain rather then something to be proud of. IMO the question "what should be generized, what shouldn't" does not make much sense. The most common mistake which people make when they think about components is when they think that they are for resubality and therefore they are trying to write "swiss army knife" components which can solve all their problems. This works bad in practice. For our cars we have summer and winter tires, which are just much better then all-season tires. And we are prepared that we will have to change tires every 60 000 KM. So in place of trying to make something which works in every possible situation - it is just better to make highly specialized things which are going to solve well our current problem. But to make them in the way which will make changes in the future simpler. So components are not about reusing the same thing all over again, but about having possibility of replacing this thing with something else when it is needed. This does not imply that we have to replace with something better or newer - during winter winter tires are the best, during summer they are not and vice versa. But the main reason why we want to replace is that technology and standards are constantly changing. Michal Components make sense everywhere. If in some domain they are not seen as something useful -
this is just a sign of immaturity of that domain rather then something to be proud of.

IMO the question “what should be generized, what shouldn’t” does not make much sense.

The most common mistake which people make when they think about components is when they think that they are for resubality and therefore they are trying to write “swiss army knife” components which can solve all their problems.

This works bad in practice. For our cars we have summer and winter tires, which are just much better then all-season tires.
And we are prepared that we will have to change tires every 60 000 KM.
So in place of trying to make something which works in every possible situation – it is just better to make highly specialized things which are going to solve well our current problem. But to make them in the way which will make changes in the future simpler.

So components are not about reusing the same thing all over again, but about having possibility of replacing this thing with something else when it is needed. This does not imply that we have to replace with something better or newer -
during winter winter tires are the best, during summer they are not and vice versa.

But the main reason why we want to replace is that technology and standards are constantly changing.

Michal

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