I think Rich Hickey's simplicity talks are an important contribution to our industry. I think they are an eloquent message that can help get developers on a si

I think Rich Hickey's simplicity talks are an important contribution to our industry. I think they are an eloquent message that can help get developers on a similar page. But ultimately, I feel, it's just poetics. If I asked the best developers in the world to write down all of their wisdom with the goal that they would only be allowed to criticize code they review if a computer could show that one of their rules was violated. And the take the results to an alien world. I assert we would find the vast majority of the rules not helpful. Or if we went to the past and changed the course of history such that all modern programming languages are (at least a little) different. Or if we even took the rules to a different sub industry (videogames to aerospace or vice versa). Our ideas of quality, simplicity, and everything else all have an unbelievable high dependency on context (at least when they aren't coming from ego, arrogance, ignorance, preference, or anecdote). Even something as small as adding a new library/framework, getting a new team member, or changing a feature or product goal can be enough to invalidate or radically change what guidance we give for success. We have best practices but that phrase is used to justify mutually exclusive and sometimes downright opposite courses of action. When we see something we dont like we call it a code smell. Smell. Like the most primal and instinct driven sense. Not "hey we have some data on why this is bad" but "this code makes my tummy feel bad". So while I'm glad that people are still meditating on how to make the code simpler. It seems to come down to a religious exercise or a spiritual awakening. The individual comes back enlightened, energized, and quoting poetry. But whether or not anyone listens to them is dependent on how good of a story they can tell. And whether or not I can participate depends on whether or not they can actually tell me anything real or true. "But what does it really mean," I ask. They blink as if confused. "But I just told you, yellow is the most simple of the colors." I want you to tell me why my code is bad. But you have to tell me why before I show it to you. A mathematician can tell me why my calculus might be bad before seeing it. A scientist can tell me why my experiment is bad before seeing it. An engineer can tell me why my circuit is bad before seeing it. Even a writer can make some pretty good guesses as to why my story is bad before seeing it. Nobody has ever been able to tell me why the code was bad ahead of time in any way that wasn't hopelessly invalid by the end of the week.