People who disagree aren't trying to make things complex
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People who disagree aren't trying to make things complex
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Re: People who disagree aren't trying to make things complex
#2I heard somewhere, "People are not against you. They are just for themselves."
Re: People who disagree aren't trying to make things complex
#3A big part of this is that programmers have different programming worldviews. Many people seem to be unaware that worldviews are not perfect rational easily modifiable constructions but are instead foundational structures that thinking builds upon automatically. Programmers are about as unlikely to easily change their programming worldviews as they are to change their political beliefs.
Which is not to say that programming worldviews can't change, it's just that by their nature it takes a strong effort to change then and the changes are usually gradual over time. Or something completely irrational changed them. For example if a programmer needs to find a new job and the team has a different approach to programming, this social circumstance may necessitate that he adopt a new viewpoint.
I think that people are less rational than they think they are. Which is not to say that they can't be rational, it's just that other preformed factors besides logic have a strong influence over our perspectives on a particular topic.
So we can certainly discuss things productively but we should be aware that people can't change their religion easily. And no matter how smart or rational everyone has strong beliefs because that's just how our brains operate.
One consequence is that when trying to have rational discussions it is necessary to try to dig in to identify all of people assumptions, since there is a good chance of of the other person's programming beliefs may play a big role in their thinking and you may not even be aware of it.
Re: People who disagree aren't trying to make things complex
#4A big part of this is that programmers have different programming worldviews. Many people seem to be unaware that worldviews are not perfect rational easily modifiable constructions but are instead foundational structures that thinking builds upon automatically. Programmers are about as unlikely to easily change their programming worldviews as they are to change their political beliefs. Which is not to say that progr…
Have you seen the mkdir world view? It's the one where all the code is spread out over as many directories as possible, and leaf directories typically have no siblings just yet and one child.
Re: People who disagree aren't trying to make things complex
#5This is a particularly thorny issue as a Junior Developer. There's the issue of the Junior reaching beyond their britches, but there's also the issue of Seniors being set in there ways.
Re: People who disagree aren't trying to make things complex
#6As someone who has read Moby Dick front to back I can agree with this argument. I had a colleague once, really bright engineer but not as steadfast as I was at the time. I suggested he read this amazing novel and he instead opted for the book on tape. During a long drive he almost died from boredom. Literally! He almost fell asleep at the wheel. While he disagreed with me that manually reading the book was the optimal approach he was not trying to make things more complex. He was merely trying to take the easy way out. This grave mistake almost cost him his life. Consider this tale next time you are thinking about not putting in some work!
Re: People who disagree aren't trying to make things complex
#7I agree that the idea of "simplicity" can become convoluted. But some of his specific examples I strongly disagree with. Like others are saying, it comes a lot from your worldview on programming. Coming from someone who was involved in an extreme Microsoft Stack (which I definitely get from the vibe of the writer here, either that or Java?) and gone away from that, I can say simplicity wins. It really just depends on how simple the given language allows you to be, and what that looks like.
In my personal opinion the Microsoft Stack really traps you in a box. Not a bad stack, but you can't really translate the "patterns" you have to use there into a lot of other stacks.
Re: People who disagree aren't trying to make things complex
#8> What if there is no "complexity trap", just disagreements about how best to design programs?
While I think this post asks reasonable questions, and has some healthy skepticism, the complexity trap is very real, in my experience. After 20 years of professional software development, I can safely say I've watched literally tens of millions of dollars wasted over-engineering solutions to problems that were anywhere from smaller than advertised to did not actually exist.
I also freely admit that I personally tend to deep dive on cool/elegant/fast/small solutions where my time to achieve the optimal program is never recouped by running the program.
There absolutely is some under-engineering too, I've done some, and seen some in the wild. But on the whole my samples are that over-engineering is the dominant problem. That might not be true for people who hire contractors; from that point of view, getting less than you think you paid for is probably the most common experience.
Re: People who disagree aren't trying to make things complex
#9I deliberately try to make things complex, but not more complex than they actually are, though apparently this is received as a matter of perception. It commonly boils down to risk or performance versus convenience.
As a senior developer I notice that juniors will sometimes do everything in their power to over-simplify a given problem. This is more often due to insecurity than accident or technical ignorance and while their motives are often unintentional (non-cognitive) the actions are often exceedingly deliberate (cognitive decisions).
When this occurs the developer isn't changing the problem. They are changing themselves and their approach to the problem. Unfortunately, this is evidently reflected in the quality of work. Pointing out this shortcoming can result in conflict because the offending party's actions, even though often unintentionally motivated, are deliberate and thus the criticism may be received as unnecessarily too precise or picky. Again, its all about risk or performance in the product versus the individual developer's confidence displayed as a convenience.
Re: People who disagree aren't trying to make things complex
#10I deliberately try to make things complex, but not more complex than they actually are, though apparently this is received as a matter of perception. It commonly boils down to risk or performance versus convenience. As a senior developer I notice that juniors will sometimes do everything in their power to over-simplify a given problem. This is more often due to insecurity than accident or technical ignorance and whil…
>I deliberately try to make things complex
I see this often with someone who has made it into a senior role and then is attempting to ensure job security through complexity. Reflecting this on to junior developers further reinforces that said developer has adopted (usually subconsciously) a fear-driven approach.