[naasking]

> If you find me a way to work with complexity, for example modularization, abstracting it away, etc., it will not lead to us writing a good version of the software we had before. It will lead us to writing larger software that will then again be at the limit of what we can do with the technology available.

So basically Parkinson's law applied to complexity rather than time. I think it's definitely true. More complex software is (ideally) more versatile, handles more cases of the problem domain, and so there's competitive pressure to make software as complex as is feasible to solve as many problem as possible, and thus, provide as much value as possible. The ceiling is exactly as you said: what level of complexity is manageable given the other constraints that must be satisfied (performance, robustness, etc.)?

Edit: to be clear, I mean "essential complexity" above, not accidental complexity from poor designs. Being able to handle more essential complexity is a good thing.