[hinkley]

Occasionally I make an analogy to stage acting or opera. In order for the people in the medium priced seats to see the action on the stage, all the actors have to over-emote to make everything that is happening dreadfully obvious.

In a system that is the composition of 30-300 different functional units, nobody will be close to any one part unless they’re the bus number for it. So each piece needs to be dead obvious so you can worry about the consequences of composing them. At the end of the day it’s Kernighan’s Law but rephrased so as not to ignore Conway or Brooks.