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I'm always surprised at how much people can talk about simplicity and complexity without giving any definition of those terms. Basically, the actual content of
by sesm 2y ago
I'm always surprised at how much people can talk about simplicity and complexity without giving any definition of those terms.
Basically, the actual content of this article is giving the author's own indirect definition of the word 'complex'. The way I understood the definition is 'complex = overgeneralised and purposefully made harder to understand'.
This is different from other definitions. For example, according to Rich Hickey's definition, multimethods are 'simple' because they provide 'polymorphism a-la carte'. According to author's definition they would be complex because they are an overgeneralised implementation of polymorphism.
- smgit 2y agoIt doesn't really matter. There might be a "simple" or a "complex" solution to a problem, but there is no guarantee whoever is given the problem, has the time, or cash, or tools, or skill, or info, or team, etc etc to do the job right. And thanks to history we know quite well, very few like to admit shortcomings and limitations, so endless misunderstandings are the result. Quoting Herbert Simon - "You can satisfice either by finding optimum solutions for a simplified world, or by finding satisfactory solutions for a more realistic world. Neither approach, in general, dominates the other, and both have continued to co-exist in the world"