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Do the simplest thing that could possibly work

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1070 points dondraper36 | 5 comments | 29 Aug 25 19:05 UTC | HN request time: 0.625s | source
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codingwagie ◴[29 Aug 25 20:39 UTC] No.45069135[source]▶
I think this works in simple domains. After working in big tech for a while, I am still shocked by the required complexity. Even the simplest business problem may take a year to solve, and constantly break due to the astounding number of edge cases and scale.

Anyone proclaiming simplicity just hasnt worked at scale. Even rewrites that have a decade old code base to be inspired from, often fail due to the sheer amount of things to consider.

A classic, Chesterton's Fence:

"There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”"

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1. anymouse123456 ◴[30 Aug 25 11:41 UTC] No.45073810[source]▶
Okay, I'll bite.

> Anyone proclaiming simplicity just hasnt [sic] worked at scale

I've worked in startups and large tech organizations over decades and indeed, there are definitely some problems in those places that are hard.

That said, in my opinion, the majority of technical solutions were over engineered and mostly waste.

Much simpler, more reliable, more efficient solutions were available, but inappropriately dismissed.

My team was able to demonstrate this by producing a much simpler system, deploying it and delivering it to many millions of people, every day.

Chesterton's fence is great in some contexts, especially politics, but the vast majority of software is so poorly made, it rarely applies IMO.

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2. whstl ◴[30 Aug 25 11:49 UTC] No.45073848[source]▶
Hard agree.

I also worked on some quite large organizations with quite large services that would easily take 10x to 50x the amount of time to ship if they were a smaller org.

Most of the time people were mistaking complexity caused by bad decisions (tech or otherwise) with "domain complexity" and "edge cases" and refusing to acknowledge that things are now harder because of those decisions. Just changing the point of view makes it simple again, but then you run into internal politics.

With microservices especially, the irony was that it was mostly the decisions justified as being done to "save time in the future" that ended up generating the most amount of future work, and in a few cases even problems around compliance and data sovereignty.

3. ◴[30 Aug 25 11:50 UTC] No.45073850[source]▶
4. gozzoo ◴[30 Aug 25 11:50 UTC] No.45073855[source]▶
So, case by case then?
5. ozim ◴[30 Aug 25 12:25 UTC] No.45074024[source]▶
Problem is that you can’t create a system in vacuum.

Mostly it is not like a movie where you hand pick the team for the job.

Usually you have to play the cards you’re dealt with so you take whatever your team is comfortable building.

Which in the end is dealing with emotions, people ambition, wishes.

I have seen stuff gold plated just because one vocal person was making fuss. I have seen good ideas blocked just because someone wanted to feel important. I have seen teams who wanted to „do proper engineering” but they thought over engineering was proper way and anything less than gold plating makes them look like amateurs.