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If Antoine de Saint-Exupery was right that: "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." then I

If Antoine de Saint-Exupery was right that: "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." then IT as an industry is heading further and further away from perfection at an exponentially accelerating rate. The only example I can think of where a modern community is actively seeking to simplify things is Clojure. Rich Hickey is very clear on the problem of building more and more complicated stuff and is actively trying to create software by composing genuinely simpler parts.

harperlee 5y ago
Jonathan Blow has also been vocal on that regard.
TameAntelope 5y ago
I'd argue that perfection achievement is not a linear process. Sometimes you have to add way too many things before you can remove all of the useless things. Nobody is puppeteering some grand master plan, we're on a journey of discovery. When we're honest with ourselves, we realize nobody knows what will stick and what won't.
- benjaminjosephw 5y ago
  Absolutely, but dogma and "best-practices" anchor design discussions around today's norms. People get very defensive about tools they've invested in and that kind of dogma stunts imagination for different and better solutions. Discovery is very rarely an accidental process so we can't take for granted that it will be inevitable. I think it's important to recognize that most people are not interested in discovery at all. Practitioners are often not explorers, and that's okay. They may find incremental improvements through their practice, but paradigm shifting innovation comes from those willing to swim against the stream of popular opinion. Discovery has to be an intentional pursuit of those brave enough to imagine a future beyond Multics/Kubernetes/etc despite the torrent of opinionated naysayers telling them they are foolish for even trying.
  - TameAntelope 5y ago
    I guess I completely disagree. Discovery is nothing except a series of accidents and happenstance. Nobody gets anything difficult right on the first try, and there’s an arrogance in thinking we could.
hnbad 5y ago
If you understand the quote to mean that the process of achieving perfection can only consist of removing things rather than adding them, how do you know whether you've really achieved perfection or just reached a local optimum?

harperlee 5y ago

Jonathan Blow has also been vocal on that regard.

TameAntelope 5y ago

I'd argue that perfection achievement is not a linear process. Sometimes you have to add way too many things before you can remove all of the useless things. Nobody is puppeteering some grand master plan, we're on a journey of discovery. When we're honest with ourselves, we realize nobody knows what will stick and what won't.

benjaminjosephw 5y ago
Absolutely, but dogma and "best-practices" anchor design discussions around today's norms. People get very defensive about tools they've invested in and that kind of dogma stunts imagination for different and better solutions. Discovery is very rarely an accidental process so we can't take for granted that it will be inevitable. I think it's important to recognize that most people are not interested in discovery at all. Practitioners are often not explorers, and that's okay. They may find incremental improvements through their practice, but paradigm shifting innovation comes from those willing to swim against the stream of popular opinion. Discovery has to be an intentional pursuit of those brave enough to imagine a future beyond Multics/Kubernetes/etc despite the torrent of opinionated naysayers telling them they are foolish for even trying.
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  I guess I completely disagree. Discovery is nothing except a series of accidents and happenstance. Nobody gets anything difficult right on the first try, and there’s an arrogance in thinking we could.

hnbad 5y ago

If you understand the quote to mean that the process of achieving perfection can only consist of removing things rather than adding them, how do you know whether you've really achieved perfection or just reached a local optimum?