[xiphias2]

,,If we take that braid and two more and weave them together, IHMO we're only adding three more interactions (now we're at 6), but if we take all nine original strands and weave them all together, we're up to, what... at least 72 "interactions" (each of the 9 has an interaction with 8 others), and that's before asking if any of the "interactions" themselves become "interacting things" (and then we get a combinatorial explosion).''

You're totally right in it.

But the huge mistake I made just recently is to create a very simple interface that hides lots of different features with a few elegant flags. Although it's a super tiny interface that's easy to understand, the interactions became very complex.

Instead of using my library, people started to create another that just does 1 thing, and can't take advantage of my hard work even if they wanted.

Have I created 10 different totally independent components that use the same basic data structures (with a bigger total API surface), people could have used just the 2-3 that they need in their own system, and would have been able to understand (and even report / fix / debug) the interactions.

And actually everybody wants something a bit different, and nobody wants really all those 9 features.

This experience is what resonates with me right now when listening to the video.

[RangerScience]

Yup yup! It's like Asimov's Three Laws; you want to end up with a balance between the principles, and the "more important" ones just get higher weighting. It's totally possible (and common, I'd say) for the "weight" of the third one (complexity of the things) to reach the point where it's better to shift the complexity onto the "number of things".

(actually, on that note, a piece of my life philosophy is to have "opposing principles", since it's only through forces in opposition that balance is possible).