Shotgun Debugging, Constitutional Law, and the Argument from Elegance

[maradydd]

As some of you know, I have a rather lengthy post in the works about the history of challenges to initiative amendments in California -- that is, constitutional amendments which are proposed by a petition of the people and decided by popular vote. It's 1500 words and counting, and will probably hit 3000 by the time it's done, but I wanted to make

Comments

[maradydd]

until such time as the legislature explicitly clarified the issue, to the extent possible under the state constitution.

This takes quite a lot of time, though. California's been working on it since 1999 and we haven't quite got it right yet; domestic partnerships facially do not have parity with marriages.

[maradydd]

Thus my argument from elegance: just do a pull-up refactoring already. :P

[maradydd]

If everyone who wrote a shitty workaround and found it biting them in the ass were forbidden from refactoring their code to go back and do it right, there would be no code at all.

Let him who is without sin, &c, &c.