I like http://yosefk.com/blog/what-worse-is-better-vs-the-right-thi... which slices through the ambiguous terms 'worse' and 'better' and focuses on the crucial ideological divide: do you think evolution is something to combat or something to go with the grain of? That fits with a lot of your comment as well.
But you should elaborate on your last 2 paragraphs. I'm not sure I buy either that Arc adoption can pick up or that the mainstream tech stack will ever cut out layers.
My synthesis of "Worse is better" for myself (with Mu[1] and SubX[2]):
a) I don't think of evolution as "bad". Building something incompatible is indeed maladaptive. I'm clear-eyed about that.
b) Mu doesn't try to come up with the perfect architecture that doesn't need to evolve. Instead it tries to identify and eliminate every source of friction for future rewrites.
c) My goal isn't to go mainstream. I'd be happy to just have some minor Arc-level adoption. I think it's better to have a small number of people who actually understand the goal (an implementation that's friendly to outsiders) than to have a lot of adoption that causes Mu to forget its roots. My real goal is to build something that outlasts the mainstream stack (the way mammals outlasted the dinosaurs). That doesn't feel as difficult. It's clear the mainstream has a lot of baggage bogging it down. It'll eventually run out of steam. But probably not in my lifetime.
Anyways, I hope in a year or so to give Mu an Arc-like high-level language. It won't improve Arc's adoption, but hopefully it will help promulgate the spirit of this forum: to keep the implementation transparent, and to be friendly to newcomers without burning ourselves out.
