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    A Note on Essential Complexity

    (olano.dev)
    159 points todsacerdoti | 13 comments | 17 Jun 24 22:08 UTC | HN request time: 1.091s | source | bottom
    1. smallstepforman ◴[18 Jun 24 03:50 UTC] No.40713897[source]▶
    Complexity builds rockets with thrust vectoring and lands modules on the moon, simplicity is good for fire crackers.

    Once you scale past simple prototypes, you need performance and new features. And the architecture stops being simple and complexity eventually creeps in.

    I’ve implented 4 iterations of a product from scratch, and eventually they all get complex, even though each one started out with the goal of being simpler than the previous iteration. Yes, iteration #4 is more complex than #1, but it is more performant.

    In parallel I’m building a new house, and each iteration of the plans is more complex. You try to manage compromises. You take 2 steps forward, one back. Which way do windows face, can an older person navigate, is there enough storage space, cost, esthetics, where does a dirty dog enter, where is the chimney for preppers, driveway and orchard, septics and wells, drainage and water collection, guest rooms and hot tubs, all on a budget … Simple wont do.

    replies(5): >>40714186 #>>40714675 #>>40714742 #>>40716914 #>>40716960 #
    2. danybittel ◴[18 Jun 24 04:55 UTC] No.40714186[source]▶
    I'd say these are essential complexities, they are features necessary for the client. Accidental complexity would be, if you for example, assigned the work on your new house to different "teams". Then the "guest room" team also build a drainage, or used a prebuilt drainage, not connected to the drainage the other team built.

    To quote a quote from the article: "In my experience most of the complexities which are encountered in systems work are symptoms of organizational malfunctions."

    3. langsoul-com ◴[18 Jun 24 06:31 UTC] No.40714675[source]▶
    You want to start with simple, because simple will become complex overtime. Starting with complicated means it'd only become more complicated.

    Simple is also relative though. No point preparing for Google scale, when there's less than 10 users a month. But, if the objective is something like discord, real time comms, then it'd be simpler to start with the correct language and framework for that use case.

    4. tristramb ◴[18 Jun 24 06:44 UTC] No.40714742[source]▶
    The vast complexity of the 21st Century has still not managed to land a single person on the Moon.
    replies(2): >>40715146 #>>40718173 #
    5. TeMPOraL ◴[18 Jun 24 07:49 UTC] No.40715146[source]▶
    That's not on technology, that's on people holding the purse strings only caring about growing their purses. Capitalism grew up, and is a boring old fart now.
    replies(1): >>40716879 #
    6. CRConrad ◴[18 Jun 24 12:14 UTC] No.40716879{3}[source]▶
    Capitalism supplanted its father, Mercantilism, in the eighteenth or at the very latest the nineteenth century. It was "an old fart" well before WW2.
    replies(1): >>40717232 #
    7. Anotheroneagain ◴[18 Jun 24 12:18 UTC] No.40716914[source]▶
    Complexity is anything that makes it hard to understand and modify a system.

    I disagree with this. It's overwhelmingly more difficult to design something simple, or modify it so that it stays simple. Coming up with complex solutions is easy, the cost is the time and resources it takes to deal with that monster. Somebody has to read all that, walk through all that, and machine all that, and assemble all that.

    Much of progress comes from figuring out simple solutions to problems, which frees up time and resources for other things. It must, in the end take less effort to make and operate the machine than doing it by hand, no matter how much it may seem to the contrary, because otherwise it wouldn't be worth it.

    8. loldot ◴[18 Jun 24 12:23 UTC] No.40716960[source]▶
    There's a lot of people that like complexity because it makes them feel like they are doing rocket science, but in fact they are replacing a spreadsheet. Most problems on earth do not have the same complexities as those in space. Sometimes the space solution is really nice and simple though, like velcro or using a pencil instead of a fancy pen.
    replies(1): >>40717038 #
    9. djeastm ◴[18 Jun 24 12:30 UTC] No.40717038[source]▶
    If the problem you're solving isn't sufficiently complex, there's probably already a solution out there and you're re-inventing the wheel.
    replies(2): >>40717321 #>>40718868 #
    10. TeMPOraL ◴[18 Jun 24 12:52 UTC] No.40717232{4}[source]▶
    I liked the pist-WW2 middle-age crisis - threat of nuclear annihilation was bad, of course, but beyond that, people had ambitious and hopeful visions of the future.
    11. loldot ◴[18 Jun 24 12:59 UTC] No.40717321{3}[source]▶
    yes, and most people and businesses are "reinventing a wheel" - not sending people to the moon. Some ways of improving on current solutions to a problem is i.e. making it simpler or cheaper, and as mentioned, a complex problem can also have a simple solution.
    12. rikthevik ◴[18 Jun 24 14:19 UTC] No.40718173[source]▶
    > has still not managed to land a single person on the Moon.

    How about, "has still not _decided_ to land a single person on the Moon."

    13. lucianbr ◴[18 Jun 24 15:23 UTC] No.40718868{3}[source]▶
    You're arguing that every single company should be a monopoly, and nobody should ever try to compete with an existing one. Never improve anything either, unless you can do 10 times better, and only if the 10x is very complicated. Makes zero sense.