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> Are things in place to make the job easier? Seniors don’t need easier and this is a huge turnoff. What? It requires a special craft to design simpler compone

> Are things in place to make the job easier? Seniors don’t need easier and this is a huge turnoff. What? It requires a special craft to design simpler components. Most of the people don't even see it. This is where your senior skills will shine when you'll make it work like a charm as compared to the previous state. If you don't see the friction or can't reduce it then please take the first exit out.

austincheney 8y ago
I think you are conflating simple and easy. They aren't the same. Simple suggests less code, fewer pieces, and a shorter path between code and solution. Easier suggests least effort and less to look at. Simple isn't easy. The primary difference between simple and easy are decisions. A good senior will spend more energy on considerations for appropriate decisions than the actual work.
- mandeepj 8y ago
  Good definition of 'Simple'. Simple and easy may not be the same but there are situations where they are similar. For e.g. - for production deployment, I could either put the entire office upside down. Fires across the departments. Broken applications. Rollbacks. Or, I can automate all of our QA test cases and have a one-click deployment. No huss or fuss. I'm sure after having this experience, someone will definitely say - well, this was easy. Anyway, good discussion.
- feliksik 8y ago
  One of the best engineering talks is about this notion that simple!=easy : https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy This is surprisingly often not understood, even by people I showed the video. And I am not sure why. But I do think it's necessary in out field to start understanding this much more deeply, especially for senior engineers.
- gerbilly 8y ago
  > I think you are conflating simple and easy. I like to state it as complex vs. difficult. Finding a bug in ten thousand lines of crappy VB code code is 'difficult', but not fun. Writing an space/time efficient implementation of level set topology optimization is complex. Senior developers usually love complex problems, but hate merely difficult problems.

austincheney 8y ago

I think you are conflating simple and easy. They aren't the same. Simple suggests less code, fewer pieces, and a shorter path between code and solution. Easier suggests least effort and less to look at. Simple isn't easy. The primary difference between simple and easy are decisions. A good senior will spend more energy on considerations for appropriate decisions than the actual work.

mandeepj 8y ago
Good definition of 'Simple'. Simple and easy may not be the same but there are situations where they are similar. For e.g. - for production deployment, I could either put the entire office upside down. Fires across the departments. Broken applications. Rollbacks. Or, I can automate all of our QA test cases and have a one-click deployment. No huss or fuss. I'm sure after having this experience, someone will definitely say - well, this was easy. Anyway, good discussion.
feliksik 8y ago
One of the best engineering talks is about this notion that simple!=easy : https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy This is surprisingly often not understood, even by people I showed the video. And I am not sure why. But I do think it's necessary in out field to start understanding this much more deeply, especially for senior engineers.
gerbilly 8y ago
> I think you are conflating simple and easy. I like to state it as complex vs. difficult. Finding a bug in ten thousand lines of crappy VB code code is 'difficult', but not fun. Writing an space/time efficient implementation of level set topology optimization is complex. Senior developers usually love complex problems, but hate merely difficult problems.