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> write code as simply as possible is tautology What? That has nothing whatsoever to do with tautology. It's just a statement you agree with. If everyone else
by samhw 4y ago
> write code as simply as possible is tautology
What? That has nothing whatsoever to do with tautology. It's just a statement you agree with. If everyone else agreed with it, it might at most be a truism or an uninteresting statement, but evidently they do not. (They might claim to, but reality shows they optimise for other things - in my experience the simplest work, which does not always mean the simplest code, especially when you're accustomed to the mystic rituals of the Javanese tribes.)
- thinkharderdev 4y agoFair enough, maybe tautology is the wrong word, but I do think everyone agrees with it. Who ever says "we need to have more complicated code"? The question is how do you define simplicity, because it is not always obvious. Every overly-abstracted mess I've ever seen was done in the name of "simplicity". Basically, let's add an abstraction so we can "simply" swap in another database in the future, or handle X hypothetical use case by only changing configurations. Likewise, I've seen 1500 line methods with dizzying, incomprehensible control flow that was nevertheless composed entirely of "simple" if/then/else statements. And a well chosen abstraction or two made things much simpler to read, understand and modify.