[atoav]

This is probably one of the biggest sins in technological teaching. Sure it is crucially important to take away the fear of a topic. But you don't do so by saying it is simple, you do so by showing it is simple.

And it turns out sometimes you cannot show it is simple, because it is in fact very complex. But every complex topic is made up of smaller, simpler ones. Good teachers then manage to find a good order of those smaller parts that makes the steep hill climbable. Then you only need to convince people it is actually worth climbing.

[1718627440]

Simple != easy

In fact getting things to be simple can often be very hard and cumbersome.

[hilariously]

Yep, I avoid saying the word simple almost entirely - its straight forward to get to the top of a mountain, it might still be incredibly arduous.

[jelder]

Simple Network Management Protocol

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol

Sometimes I think the RFC editors are trolling us.

[atoav]

Well. I thought so as well about LDAP. Until one day I had to interact with the kind of technology LDAP was built to replace...

[1718627440]

SMTP is very simple, though.

[MrMorden]

Especially since it would be compared to X.400.

[FartyMcFarter]

True on all counts. Not sure why you're getting downvoted.

[speedgoose]

It’s a bit weird because it is one of the better HN comments I read in the last days.

[atoav]

Thanks for the kind compliment : )

I try to ask myself whether things I write are (1) writing and (2) reading before writing. Sometimes that works.