Steve Klabnik steveklabnik

I wrote this up here: http://blog.steveklabnik.com/posts/2012-02-27-hypermedia-api-reading-list

You're right, I think, about there being an inverse relationship between power and readability in code.

I strongly, strongly disagree with this. Mostly because 'readability' is entirely subjective. For certain audiences, things can be more powerful and more readable at the same time.

For example, let's examine a case in Ruby, that also pertains to Haskell: Symbol#to_proc. A new Rubyist may write some code that looks like this:

[1,2,3,4,5].each {|number| number.to_s}

However, a more experienced Rubyist will write this code like this:

	def find_and_replace_in_source_files(find, replace)
	extensions = %w[.rhtml .rxml .erb .builder .rb .css .js .rake]
	files = Dir["*/"]

	files.each do \|file_name\|
	next if (file_name =~ /^vendor/) \|\| !extensions.include?(File.extname(file_name))
	text = File.open(file_name, 'r'){ \|file\| file.read }
	changed = text.gsub!(find, replace)
	File.open(file_name, 'w'){\|file\| file.write(changed)} if changed
	end

	# Metaprogramming rots your brain.

	# First I wrote this:

	Data = Struct.new(:title)
	data.collect{\|datum\| Data.new(datum["title"])}

	# Then I decided I didn't want to make a huge list of attributes, so I decided to use an
	# OpenStruct, and ended up doing this:

	require 'hateoas'

	class Maze
	include Hateoas::MediaType

	media_type "application/vnd.amundsen.maze+xml"

	serialization :xml

	element :maze,

	<!DOCTYPE html>
	<html>
	<head><title>SEARCH</title></head>
	<body>
	<form method="GET" action="/results">
	<input type="text" name="q" />
	<input type="submit" />
	</form>
	</body>
	</html>

	Hypermedia designs scale better, are more easily changed and promote decoupling
	and encapsulation, with all the benefits those things bring. On the downside,
	it is not necessarily the most latency-tolerant design, and caches can get stale
	if you're not careful. It may not be as efficient on an individual request level
	as other designs.

	Foreward
	About This Project
	Hypermedia API
	Web Worship
	Hypermedia Benefits in Plain Language
	Linking
	Hypertext
	Programming The Media Type (COMING SOON)
	The Design Process an Overview
	Building the W3CLove API

	[redacted] is real good at making me angry.

	the argumentation lacks any show of willingness to try to empathize
	with those that whole differing view points, or who may be impacted
	negatively by the behavior in question.

	Why is he defending dick jokes, moreover, why is he defending people
	that make dick jokes; why does he make dick jokes. I feel like, by
	asking those three questions, I am currently at a more powerful point
	for real understanding than he is, because he is

	require 'rubygems'
	require 'bundler/setup'
	require 'webmachine'
	require 'webmachine/adapters/rack'

	require './shoes'

	Shoes = Webmachine::Application.new do \|app\|
	app.routes do
	add ["css", "*"], PublicResources