simplicity

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Nobody Gets Promoted for Simplicity
2 months ago
- Simplicity is undervalued in engineering culture; complex solutions get rewarded while simple ones are invisible.
- In promotions, engineers who build elaborate systems have compelling narratives; those who ship simple, effective solutions struggle to articulate their impact.
- Interviews often push candidates toward complex designs, teaching that simplicity isn't enough.
- Design reviews pressure engineers to future-proof unnecessarily, adding unearned complexity.
- True seniority is knowing when not to use complex tools, not just adding them.
- To fix this, engineers should document their decision-making, push back on unnecessary complexity, and discuss with managers.
- Leaders must change incentive structures: ask for the simplest version first, recognize avoided complexity, and celebrate simplicity in public channels.
Write Simply
2 months ago
- Writing with ordinary words and simple sentences makes it easier for readers to engage deeply with ideas.
- Reducing friction in reading helps readers stay engaged longer and reach the end of the text.
- The goal is to make ideas leap into the reader's head, minimizing awareness of the words (like saltintesta).
- Simple writing is more considerate, especially for non-native English speakers, and doesn't burden readers.
- Fancy writing can hide a lack of substance, while simple writing forces honesty.
- Simple writing lasts better over time as culture and language change, signaling quality.
- The author writes simply because they find complex or intellectual prose clumsy, not accidental.
- The writing process involves fast first drafts followed by extensive editing and cutting to achieve simplicity.
Your minimalistic app is great! Can you add these 38 features, though?
2 months ago
- Released Textpod, a simple note-taking app based on a single text file with file attachments and link archiving.
- The app received positive reception and many feature requests, but the author felt conflicted about adding them.
- While some features are sensible for complex apps, adding them to Textpod would compromise its core simplicity.
<antirez>
2 months ago
- The author spent time working on linenoise, a minimal line-editing library, and felt a sense of nirvana from complete control over small, self-contained, useful code.
- Simplicity is valued for its own sake, not just to avoid complexity or over-engineering, but for beauty, understandability, and elegance.
- Small programs can be perfect because constraints foster creativity and avoid the 'it may be better' trap, making what the program does more interesting than what it does not.
- Bill Gates' experience with the Microsoft BASIC interpreter exemplifies perfection in constrained environments where space and time were scarce.
- Today's software is often layered with complexity, but we should still aim for perfection at the large scale, seeing the program as a whole rather than a pile of code.
<antirez>
2 months ago
- The author spent days iterating on API designs for new modules and a Redis data type, emphasizing the critical role of user interfaces for programmers.
- Programmer UIs (APIs, libraries, command-line tools, etc.) are used daily and shape the perception of a system; simplicity is crucial.
- Iterating to find a simple UI is not perfectionism but an exploration of design space, guided by sensibility rather than strict rules.
- Good, simple UIs enable learning general concepts (micronutrients) rather than ad-hoc knowledge (junk food) that becomes obsolete.
- The author advocates for refining designs before shipping and ensuring that ad-hoc parts are simple and even fun to use.
The Productivity Mirage
2 months ago
- Bob, a legendary software engineer at Facebook, was responsible for shipping Facebook Groups and known for being a prolific hackathon winner.
- The narrator, a productivity nerd with an elaborate Vim/tmux/hphpd setup, was shocked to see Bob using vanilla Sublime Text with poor syntax highlighting and printf debugging.
- Bob's success came from his product taste and intuition, not his tools or editor setup.
- The key lesson is that solving the right problems and having good product intuition matters more than optimizing workflows.
Simplicity Doesn't Sell (and I'm Tired of Being Called Lazy for It)
2 months ago
- Selling simplicity in tech projects is often rejected because clients prefer impressive but overengineered solutions over practical ones.
- A professional was criticized for suggesting SQLite for a small internal tool (3 users) and was dropped from a project.
- Clients avoid simple solutions because they threaten their self-image as builders of 'scalable' or 'enterprise' systems.
- True simplicity requires deep understanding and difficult decisions, unlike following tutorials for complex architectures.
- Complexity is mistaken for competence, as elaborate diagrams in pitch decks get funded while simple solutions get rejected.
- Experience leads developers to suggest simplicity due to knowing the true costs of complexity, not laziness.
- Most projects aren't unique, and adding more moving parts doesn't solve problems but delays time to market.
- The professional urges buyers to examine if their resistance to simplicity stems from insecurity rather than engineering need.

simplicity

Nobody Gets Promoted for Simplicity

Write Simply

Your minimalistic app is great! Can you add these 38 features, though?

<antirez>

<antirez>

The Productivity Mirage

Simplicity Doesn't Sell (and I'm Tired of Being Called Lazy for It)