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A Note on Essential Complexity

(olano.dev)
159 points todsacerdoti | 1 comments | 17 Jun 24 22:08 UTC | HN request time: 0.217s | source
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jt2190 ◴[18 Jun 24 00:46 UTC] No.40712917[source]▶
I feel like this article over-complicates things by using a strange definition of “essential complexity”: That if a user says that something is necessary, than that is essential complexity. Personally I never assume that the user has distilled a problem down to its essence. Regardless, my process looks a lot like what the author recommends: Question assumptions, propose alternatives, eliminate work, etc.
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lantry ◴[18 Jun 24 00:57 UTC] No.40712978[source]▶
This is addressed in the second half of the article

> Strictly following Moseley and Marks’s definition, the fact that we can get the user (or the customer, or the product owner) to accept a change of requirements, implies that the removed complexity wasn’t essential in the first place.

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1. jt2190 ◴[18 Jun 24 02:10 UTC] No.40713425[source]▶
Let me editorialize that:

> Strictly following Mosley and Marks’s different definition because it’s strange and I can easily poke holes in it…

Again, I’m not sure why it was necessary to “strictly follow” that bizarre definition of essential complexity, one that seems to define anything a user says as “essential”.