Software is art, fashion and politics.
People who disagree aren't trying to make things complex
21–30 of 162 posts
Re: People who disagree aren't trying to make things complex
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
This comment feels like a markov chain wrote it. Do you really find parallels between this anecdote and reality? What if we presented an anecdote of the opposite to you, would you change your worldview entirely? If not, why should anyone who reads this?
I don't think the point of most comments are to change someone's worldview entirely (unless of course they are disputing religion or something on that level). Perhaps they might help to mold it over time but if a single comment can change the way you view the world I think your view was too simplistic to start.
Alexa, tell me a story.
Re: People who disagree aren't trying to make things complex
#23A 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…
This is a great comment, and very succinctly put. Somewhat incidentally, but I believe this is a large part of why, to me, software development is not an engineering discipline. At the end of the day, engineers (I think; not actually being one myself) have to answer to physics. The 'possible model space' is relatively constrained, and everyone is working under, roughly, the same set of assumptions, rules, and standar…
I think engineering disciplines broadly have comparable flexibility to software. Looking to electrical engineering, circuit design is mostly arbitrary once you're within certain physical bounds (such as controlling for noise in a high speed circuit). Regardless of discipline, there seems to be infinity^12 ways to skin their particular cats. Older disciplines just have more "turn clockwise" assumptions built into the mountain that makes their foundation.
Re: People who disagree aren't trying to make things complex
#24A 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.
Is this a particularly egregious worldview that should not be tolerated?
Re: People who disagree aren't trying to make things complex
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think the point of most comments are to change someone's worldview entirely (unless of course they are disputing religion or something on that level). Perhaps they might help to mold it over time but if a single comment can change the way you view the world I think your view was too simplistic to start.
Alexa, tell me a story.
You can say "Alexa, read me Moby Dick".
Re: People who disagree aren't trying to make things complex
#26Couldn't read because of the terrible font but I'm sure I disagree with all he says.
Re: People who disagree aren't trying to make things complex
#27A 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…
I feel like most of the strife caused at work is different value judgements on things. So I've been trying to tease out truths vs value judgements.
1 + 1 will always equal 2, no one debates that. AWS offers both Postgres and MySQL, no one debates that. But which one is better, that will be informed by possibly irrational value judgements ("Postgres bit me once, never again!")
I think people are irrational in terms of their inability to admit where their biases are ("Postgres bad") vs things that are largely factual ("we can choose between these vendors").
Re: People who disagree aren't trying to make things complex
#28So, we should just "agree to disagree" and stop trying to demonstrate how one approach might be much better over another? How can anything ever get better?
The Complexity Trap didn't accuse anyone of actively trying to make things complex, nor did it imply any "moral failings" on anyone's part, it just gave examples of how common practices can cause accidental complexity. It also dedicates an entire section to defining "complexity" as used throughout, so there's no ambiguity there.
Re: People who disagree aren't trying to make things complex
#29I 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…
That's funny because I have become, and observe the exact opposite.
The notion of trying to make things more complex than they need to be I find deeply problematic.
Junior engineers often end up devising solutions which are in fact too complex as they try to over engineer everything.
The more experience I have, the more I accept that code is complexity and cost and that it should be avoided.
Always take the easy path unless there are very good reasons not to ... because you'll never know where you need to actually pivot when you get there.
To your point (not more complex than they actually are) - yes, there is sometimes inherent complexity in the problem space that can't be avoided - but that doesn't mean the solution actually needs to be complicated. Domain complexity might possibly be well encapsulated, leaving the rest of the system fairly straight forward.
Re: People who disagree aren't trying to make things complex
#30As 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 optima…
This comment feels like a markov chain wrote it. Do you really find parallels between this anecdote and reality? What if we presented an anecdote of the opposite to you, would you change your worldview entirely? If not, why should anyone who reads this?
+100 points for that analogy. "Your prose reads like a Markov Chain". That is Gold. I'm putting that on a T-Shirt.