[jolmg]

Problem: Finely chopping food

Complex and Easy: Stick blender with chopper attachment.

Simple and Hard: Knife and cutting board.

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Problem: Making a drawing

Complex and Easy: Computer and printer

Simple and Hard: Paper and pencil

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Problem: Sewing lots of clothes (perfect stitches)

Complex and Easy: Sewing machine

Simple and Hard: Thread and needle

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Problem: Software

Complex and Easy: Graphical User Interface

Simple and Hard: Command-Line Interface

[msla]

> Problem: Software

> Complex and Easy: Graphical User Interface

> Simple and Hard: Command-Line Interface

GUIs are easy for the specific things the programmers made easy, and potentially impossible for everything else. The moment you want something the developers didn't put in the GUI, there's no recourse other than writing your own tool.

Command lines are harder to begin with, but modern command lines give you a gentler ramp up to writing your own tools.

[jolmg]

Same is true with the other examples, I believe. Simpler tools tend to be the more versatile ones.

[Ma8ee]

In all your examples, the complexity is hidden in the underlying technology, which I think makes them less than ideal. Sewing with a sewing machine is usually both less complex and simpler than sewing by hand. If you count the complexity of the hardware and the operating system and compiler, nothing in development is simple.

For me the dichotomy is better is better illustrated by: I need to create a new class that, with a few exceptions, does exactly what an existing class already does.

The easy way is to copy the existing class and make the small necessary changes in the copy. The simple way would be to refactor and put all the differences in delegates.

[jolmg]

> both less complex and simpler

Did you mean "easier"? Because complex and simpler are antonyms, so it seems kind of redundant to use both words.

> the complexity is hidden in the underlying technology

The complexity is there. Maybe not all get involved with it, but it's still there.

> Sewing with a sewing machine is usually [simpler] than sewing by hand

The technology is more complex. The operation is maybe on par, though I would think it's also more complex. I may be biased in that I've hand-stitched many times and I find it super-simple, but I'm still a bit intimidated at the prospect of learning the basic use of a sewing machine. For very basic hand-stitching, you just put the thread through the needle, and the needle through the clothes in some pattern. That's it. For the sewing machine, I guess you have to lead the thread through some parts of the machinery, select some stuff through the knobs, etc. I think there certainly is a need to know a bit on the construction and workings of the sewing machine to be able to fix issues that arise.

> If you count the complexity of the hardware and the operating system and compiler, nothing in development is simple.

Complex and simple are relative terms, after all. If you refer to the last example of CLI vs GUI, they both involve the OS and compiler, etc. so that cancels out and we can refer to one as simpler or more complex than the other just based on the differences. Now, if you compare software development to making a sandwich, then sure, nothing in software development is as simple as making a sandwich.

> The easy way is to copy the existing class and make the small necessary changes in the copy. The simple way would be to refactor and put all the differences in delegates.

I agree to that, and that also aligns with the examples I gave. The complexity is mainly in how the thing is constructed. Duplicated code adds complexity to how the program is constructed. When you want to make a change to the common code, you have to make the change twice, maybe with a few differences. That makes development of the program also more complex.

It's the same as a sewing machine, or a stick blender with chopper attachment. Their construction and maybe operation is more complex than their counterparts.