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Don't #2 and #3 contradict?

> Constraining the user to simple tools encourages creativity and allows the system to be more quickly understood

> There is only one correct way to do something, because two ways would be more complex

When you encourage creativity with combinations of simple tools, creative people will come up with multiple ways of doing things.

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I read the "only one correct way" to be a per-tool guideline. When looking a tool to do a specific task then (ideally) the tool should just process input with minimal futzing with configuration options. If you need to do something special then you should have a special tool.

That seems reasonable. Though in the context of packages etc, i would like to then introduce the term "toolset". Just because a piece of software is a single package doesn't mean it has to be a single tool. It is much more simple to have a bunch of tools for related tasks collected in a single toolset rather then making seperate apps for each one- never mind the overhead that the last approach would create.

Yeah "encourages creativity" struck me as the hand-waviest part of that document. It sounds like a euphemism for "requires more work".

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