Then what does it have to do with No Silver Bullet? Brooks's point isn't that you can't make languages that some people may find more attractive, but that you can't drastically reduce complexity.
> There are no sources or pieces of evidence cited in the section on what the essential tasks are.
Right, that's why it's a claim. But it comes with an empirical prediction that was later verified by observation.
> If it's an empirical claim, then the any claim made in the tarpit paper is certainly equally empirical.
Of course it is, but if we take it as a silver-bullet claim (i.e. the ability to drastically cut down complexity), then it just doesn't fit with observation.
I'm beginning to get skeptical whether you've actually read the paper. It is not making a silver bullet claim or denying the forecast originally present in No Silver Bullet. If so, it would be asserting some way to significantly reduce or completely remove essential complexity. It instead attempts to find a minimal definition of essential complexity, and proposes a method to mitigate the cost of non-essential complexity. It is supplementary to No Silver Bullet, not a refutation of it.
Not to mention what observations are you talking about? Because I'm not too aware of any tarpit inspired languages/development frameworks, let alone an actual FRP framework.
>Following Brooks we distinguish accidental from essential diculty, but disagree with his premise that most complexity remaining in contemporary systems is essential
Then what does it have to do with No Silver Bullet? Brooks's point isn't that you can't make languages that some people may find more attractive, but that you can't drastically reduce complexity.
> There are no sources or pieces of evidence cited in the section on what the essential tasks are.
Right, that's why it's a claim. But it comes with an empirical prediction that was later verified by observation.
> If it's an empirical claim, then the any claim made in the tarpit paper is certainly equally empirical.
Of course it is, but if we take it as a silver-bullet claim (i.e. the ability to drastically cut down complexity), then it just doesn't fit with observation.