Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by dawnofdusk 856 days ago
Enough of this strawman one-liner "complexity for the sake of complexity". Unnecessary complexity is introduced because someone once thought it was necessary. It may not be necessary anymore, or (even worse) it might have not even been necessary at the time and the person who introduced it was just wrong. But all complex architectures start because people think it will bring benefits.
2 comments
jerf 856 days ago
"The person who introduced it was just wrong" is doing an awful lot of heavy lifting in your post. I've seen "this is just the only thing the programmer knows" many times, for instance, in which case one can argue whether an actual "decision" is being made. Certainly "this is the tech the engineer wants to learn" is a real problem in the world, in which case again it's rather debatable whether "necessity" ever crossed their mind as a concern. "I was taught in school this is the one and only way software is designed" is common with fresh grads and they aren't really making a decision because they don't see a decision to be made.

You seem to be implying that all complexity is the result of an informed decision made by someone but this does not match my experience in the field.

link
disgruntledphd2 856 days ago
> You seem to be implying that all complexity is the result of an informed decision made by someone

My life would be much easier if this were true. One day, maybe....

link
disgruntledphd2 856 days ago
Agreed, but I rarely see this work out, even in the short term. It certainly seems like complexity for its own sake, and someone once told me that our system was embarrassingly simple so that's why they introduced a load of complexity. Sigh.
link
mrkeen 856 days ago
> someone once told me that our system was embarrassingly simple so that's why they introduced a load of complexity.

This exceeds my ability to suspend disbelief.

link
djur 855 days ago
You can't imagine someone saying "look at this system, it's totally basic, programming 101, clown shoes, baby's first web service, probably made by a PHP coder, not enterprise-class at all, we need to put on our big-boy pants, I read some whitepapers from thought leaders at FAANG and we need to implement..."
link