[lbblack]

I think too many HNers here have an incomplete picture of what makes something complex. There is genius in simplicity. Complexity can be best understood (for me) as simultaneous interactions of many simple things under the same roof, which we then consider to be in totality an object of reality.

Those simple things can be different in an infinite variety of ways, in which complexity can be derived. Personally, if I've jumped into a codebase that is messy and cluttered - unorganized... It's immediately noticable that the original project developers had a shallow and or narrow strategy for how they wanted to design their system.

Start with simple and useful mechanisms, which are the building blocks for whatever problem you are trying to solve. Complexity and abstraction can then be extrapolated from a simple yet brilliant foundation. I don't know how that isn't common sense.