Wadlers Law

PhilipWadler's Law of Language Design:

In any language design, the total time spent discussing a feature in this list is proportional to two raised to the power of its position.

0. Semantics

1. Syntax

2. Lexical syntax

3. Lexical syntax of comments

In other words, twice as much time is spent discussing syntax than semantics, twice as much time is spent discussing lexical syntax than syntax, and twice as much time is spent discussing syntax of comments than lexical syntax.

-- http://www.informatik.uni-kiel.de/~mh/curry/listarchive/0017.html

This is largely a special case of the BikeShed phenomenon: Wadler himself makes the comparison at http://wadler.blogspot.com/2006/01/bikeshed-coloring.html

See also: BikeShed

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CategoryJargon CategorySyntax