By the way, I forgot to say that I thought Jamie Lewis’ idea of a “motherhood test” for architectural principles was amazingly sensible. By this he means something cannot be an architectural principle if a reasonable person cannot suggest and defend a contrary position. Imagine how many bits will be saved by removing principles that fail this test from slide presentations and planning documents on a world-wide basis! Go forward, my ecological hero!
Parenthetically, this is a wonderful example of something which is unambiguously a principle, rather than a law. It doesn't represent a real-world dynamic bounding a system design. It is more a statement of fundamental intellectual hygiene – like Einstein's principle that things should be made as simple as possible – but no simpler.
