Talk:There's more than one way to do it

Design

this is not a design related article, is it

This is not necessarily related to language design. It's about Perl. The subject of the article is notable only as the official slogan of Perl, and is not a generally acknowledged language design principal, you would expect to find in books about language design. I have a thought that the article should be perhaps merged with Perl.

Also, despite what the article currently says, the phrase from the Zen of Python "There should be one—and preferably only one—obvious way to do it." does not appear to be notable.

This is not an official slogan of Python, and only (perhaps) of interest for the encyclopedia for the purpose of listing what TIMTOWDI is not. --Mysidia (talk)

TIMTOWTDI is, however, also a popular principle in the Ruby community. This makes the line from the Python Zen (which serves as one of the sets of guiding principles for the Python community) slightly notable because it's the polar opposite. This may explain where a lot of the Ruby vs Python and Perl vs Python friction comes from.

The slogan is notable on its own because it is used outside the Perl community as well. Whether it is a Perl slogan or not doesn't matter. -- 78.35.98.218 (talk) 05:18, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

No objections to this point have been raised so I'm removing the tag for now. Feezo (Talk) 01:32, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

There is...

LOL - why not abbreviate out the first letter of one of the words in the acronym guys? Sheesh... Suggest a rename - "There Is" instead of "There's"

Indeed. This article should be named There is more than one way to do it, since it's the exact words from the acronym TIMTOWTDI. I suggest an article rename. — Loadmaster (talk) 16:50, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Is this about Perl or Python?

This article has a strong pro-Python, anti-Perl bent in both the poor example and slanted text. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.226.152.19 (talk) 23:16, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Wow. I agree. This has surely been written by a "Pythonista". I'll leave the following comments here for a while. If no one engages, I plan to rewrite this page, or perhaps request its removal and folding of its substance back into the Perl page, to try to bring about a neutral point of view.

Is TIMTOWTDI notable enough to warrant its own page? One reason for it being/remaining notable might be that it is a well known motto among millions of developers worldwide. I'm pretty sure it used to be, but if so, is it still? Another is that it's been the constant subject of misunderstanding and childish twisting for two decades -- ironically, exactly as seen in the current article text. Imo the prevalence and success of the Python propaganda about this Perl motto is what really makes it notable.

TIMTOWTDI is primarily a broad philosophical tenet, a reminder that it's often healthy and productive to open one's mind and be creative. Yet this page leads with a focus on language design trivia, which is really secondary. Imo it needs at least a sentence at the start that brings out its broad philosophical aspect. I will seek a suitable quip by Larry, the creator of Perl and originator of the slogan.

If code is to remain, it ought at least not be a terrible parody of real Perl and TIMTOWTDI. I plan to either remove the code examples or replace them with something that illustrates the strength of TIMTOWTDI thinking applied to Perl.

While I think it entirely appropriate to mention the Bicarbonate variant and the popular juxtaposition of the original motto with the Python "Zen" slogan, the actual mentions of these in the current article are highly disingenuous even if they don't appear so to casual readers (which makes them all the more repugnant). I plan to rewrite this part of the article to connect the Bicarbonate variant and the quoted Python Zen (the former was a response to the latter which was a response to the original TIMTOWTDI) in a neutral manner.

TIMTOWTDI, applied to code, can have positives and negatives. I think it might help to quote something like this list from the http://wiki.c2.com/?ThereIsMoreThanOneWayToDoIt page of the seminal c2 wiki (the world's first wiki):

GoodThing TIMTOWTDI:

   encourages creativity
   reduces the learning time
   easy to port from other languages
   solution fits the problem
   solution fits the solver

BadThing TIMTOWTDI:

   encourages creativity
   increases the learning time
       (maintainer needs to learn every way it is done) 
   hard to port to other languages
   easy to write rubbish
   may not be the best solution for the problem
   requires the programmer to make meaningless choices
   makes different code look different
   makes same code look different
       a.k.a. "You don't do it like that, you do it like this ..."  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.187.167.96 (talk) 14:19, 21 April 2018 (UTC) 

General philosophy in different programming languages

Right now the article states:

"There's more than one way to do it (TMTOWTDI or TIMTOWTDI, pronounced Tim Toady) is a Perl programming motto. "

Now, this part is true, but TIMTOWTDI is also used in other programming languages, such as ruby.

My recommendation would be to make the main article a bit less perl-centric. Yes, attribute it to perl, but also mention other languages, such as ruby, who use the same or a very similar approach. On a side note, I wonder if it was really perl who first popularized this. 2A02:8388:1641:8380:3AD5:47FF:FE18:CC7F (talk) 13:30, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Move python reference to another page

If perl philosophy followed, add other languages like ruby also in the main page. If python philosophy followed move to another page and give link at the end as yet another 'see also'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.207.221.148 (talk) 05:37, 18 January 2023 (UTC)