So we are against perceived complexity and learning new things now? To elaborate a bit: At work I use OLAP functions to simplify the business layer and focus o

So we are against perceived complexity and learning new things now? To elaborate a bit: At work I use OLAP functions to simplify the business layer and focus on the data, moving much of the complexity to sql statements. Others get the data in it's list form and complicate the data layer or the business layer by transforming the inconveniently-structured data there. Yet I am the one who is told to tone it down and think simple. Much like the author of this article, no matter how senior he is, they seem to divine a vague notion of "simple" when they face perceived complexity. And they always seem to associate this complexity with a real life example of something which could have been simplified (like how angry Linus Trovalds got when he tried to set up a printer on linux) which is unfortunately a red herring. So is NaN equivalent to null? Does that question even make sense? Perhaps the real question is, how do I represent an optional entity without incurring additional runtime costs? C++, one of the most lamented languages for it's terrible template complexity, has no null problems. Most values are copyable, moveable or re-constructable and most code throws when faced with fatal situations where e.g. the OS runs out of allocatable memory to the point where returning null simply vanquishes and you won't see it in production code anymore. Did that solve your complex null problem? Absolutely yes. Did that come with a bunch of baggage you have to learn and implement? Yes it kinda did. So the complexity is there for a reason. Go is shameless when it comes to nil. Yet Go is mostly called out for it's lack of generics. Ah, how ironic. Anyway, if it is there in programming, it is probably for a reason and alternatives introduce their own baggage. Usage of POKE or sprite DATA segments did not suddenly dawn on me when I first started to learn me some programming. I did not say it was unnecessarily complex, or question why it didn't work like legos. I just opened the book and reduced the complexity by learning.