2007-04-11

Keep It Simple, Stupid

Cytat z bloga toomuchcode:

For anyone that might be struggling with this right now, some humble advice:

  • Follow Alan Kay's axiom: "Simple things should be simple, complex things should be possible." -- If something complicated must be in the system, it still should not affect the simple things.
  • View the project as a constant battle against complexity -- A single complex module may seem unimportant, but it quickly compounds.
  • Understand a project end-to-end -- the project should be easily broken down into problems that are known to be solvable. (Avoid Southpark's 1. Collect Underpants. 2. ??? 3. Profit!!!).
  • A strong-willed engineer or executive can will a group down the wrong path -- it's an engineer's duty to object and prevent spiraling complexity
  • The clever hack should be a last resort -- a hack that is hard to come up with is much harder to debug or support
All of this boils down to Keep It Simple, Stupid. It turns out keeping things simple is pretty hard.


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