Rule of Least Power

Last month a reference to the "Rule of Least Power" appeared in some
AC-Member emailing and, since I found it pretty interesting, I gave it
some exposure in Chevron.  I regret to tell you that what response it
got was of a sort that you would probably consider "unintended
consequences".  That is, the principle was applied to support positions
that were probably not really what you had in mind when you formulated
it.  In particular, not a single comment that it provoked had anything
whatsoever to do with declarative languages.

In general, it seems to me that the thrust of your intention is to
encourage the use of declarative languages.  My personal experience with
this, for what it is worth, has not been positive -- in the sense that I
have not been able to get any substantial uptake among my user community
other than a few isolated enthusiasts.  It seems that, in practice, the
learning curve tends to be too high.  In addition, there is a tendency
for the scope of what is being done to creep, and then you either start
using some extremely obscure constructions into the declarative language
or you give up and re-do it using a complete, procedural language.

Frankly, I used to try to follow the Rule of Least Power and I gave up.