The Grug Brained Developer

smol brain can dodge [1]

[1] https://preview.redd.it/g1lpdmt1iiv51.jpg?auto=webp&s=a5f27c...

Even big brain developer is grug brain when read code later.

Ah, the ample club of wishful thinking.

There are two general ways of approaching software design (and I'm paraphrasing Tony Hoare here):

1. You can write software so simple there are obviously no errors

2. You can write software so complex there are no obvious errors

One thing that escapes "grug" is that achieving 1. often requires more sophistication than their magical club allows. Most well-intentioned "grug" developers will write software so simple that it becomes it's own form of complexity: a giant mud-ball of for-loops, while-loops, variable assignments, and other wonderful side effects. Instead of addressing complexity head-on with abstraction, "grug" will beat "galaxy brain" over the head.

What grug fails to understand is that simplicity isn't easy or familiar. It doesn't mean "sticking to what you know." If often requires being able to reason about programs and to verify that reasoning!

But go ahead grug... keep beating people over the head with the club and hope that the complexity will go away.

> grug no able see complexity demon, but grug sense its presence in code base

This is the key problem with complexity.

Complexity is fine if you understand it! It's when you're aware that something is complex, but you start to get these mental force-fields pushing you aware from the scary parts, that it becomes a problem.

> demon complexity spirit mocking him make change here break unrelated thing there what!?!

That's the happy case! The sad case is when you make a change and don't observe any obvious breakage, but then 3 years later you realise something you somewhat care about has been silently broken for a very long time.