Claim
We less frequently change representations than we used to
- We have significantly more knowledge about data structure design than we did 25 years ago
- Memory is less often a problem than it was previously, since it’s much less expensive
Therefore, we should think twice about anticipating that representations will change
- This is important, since we can’t simultaneously anticipate all changes
- Ex: Changing the representation of null-terminated strings in Unix systems wouldn’t be sensible
- And this doesn’t represent a stupid design decision