From Chesterton's fence to Chesterton's gap (opens in new tab)

The British Writer and Catholic apologist G. K. Chesterton is, perhaps, most well known to programmers through a paragraph in which he introduces what is now known as “Chesterton’s fence”. It’s a very simple idea: You walk through a field and see a fence which, seemingly, has no purpose. Instead of tearing it down because it seemingly has no use, try to understand or ask why somebody put it there. 1 That’s it! The full quote is: ‘IN the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming t...