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by karimmaassen 1030 days ago
Simplicity is not about making complex things simple, it's about making it simple to do complex things.
3 comments

This. Let's not ride the hype train and overengineer anything. Just use any simple solution that can get the work done.
I read the article as promoting "let's use a simpler solution than that, and cut scope from the work to be done instead". If you are not willing to cut the scope of the problem to the absolute minimum, you are prioritizing something else over simplicity. That something else might be higher profits, ease of onboarding, keeping your boss(es) happy or even things like better error logging and observability. Most software projects, both for-profit and not, have a huge laundry list of things they have rightly prioritized over simplicity.

I don't even think the article tried to argue that it was wrong to want those other things over simplicity, just that most people out there only claim to want simplicity but then make another statement entirely with their actions.

I feel like a point the author is trying to make is that oftentimes "simple solutions" have their tradeoffs.
Like Perl's: Make the easy things easy, and the hard things possible.
Or, at least start by keeping simple things simple.