4 ms·

There are a lot of things like this. My favorite is how elegant solutions often look simple in retrospect. So if you noodle on a problem for a while and then

by timmg 4mo ago

There are a lot of things like this. My favorite is how elegant solutions often look simple in retrospect. So if you noodle on a problem for a while and then come up with a clever solution: once you explain it to someone they'll be like, "yeah, of course." Meanwhile the guy next to you that overcomplicates the problem ends up getting kudos for building something so difficult :D

HerbManic 4mo ago
I have said it for decades - Basic is easy, Simple is hard. But when someone comes up with something simple but effective, it always looks so obvious in retrospect.
johnthescott 4mo ago
"elegance and speed go hand in hand" - d. mcilroy
npunt 4mo ago
I feel like AI coding is accelerating everyone's work toward greater solution complexity and I think it's pushing people to build defenses and be more averse to someone else's complexity rather than being impressed by it. Bigco's are probably well behind the curve on this and are still impressed by complexity, but for people on the receiving end of AI stuff either directly via your own hand or indirectly via others, it seems like complexity is not as impressive as it once was.
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- nomel 4mo ago
  Definitely. Previously, intent and effort were required to increase complexity. Now intent and effort are required to prevent complexity*! But also, what a beautiful problem to have!
nullhole 4mo ago
The passage that comes to mind for me whenever this idea comes up, from the Brett version of the Holmes story "The Dancing Men": H: So, Watson. W: Hmm. H: You do not propose to invest in South African securities? W: How on earth do you know that? H: Now, confess, you are utterly taken aback. W: I am! H: I should make you sign a paper to that effect. W: Why? H: Because in a few minutes you will say it is all so absurdly simple. W: I should say nothing of the kind! H: You see, my dear Watson, it is not really difficult to construct a series of inferences, each dependent upon its predecessor and each simple in itself. If, after doing so, one simply knocks out the central inferences and presents one's audience with the starting point and the conclusion, one may produce a startling, though possibly a meretricious, effect. H: I can tell by an inspection of the groove between your left forefinger and thumb, that you have decided not to invest your small capital in the gold fields. W: I can see no connection. H: Very likely not; but I can quickly give you a close connection. H: Here are the missing links in the very simple chain: You had chalk between your forefinger and thumb when you returned from the club last night. You put chalk there when you play billiards, to ease the cue. You never play billiards except with Thurston. Now, Thurston, you told me, four weeks ago, had an option on some South African security which expired in a month, and which he desired you to share with him. Your checkbook is locked in my drawer, and you have not asked for the key. So, you do not propose to invest your money in that manner. W: How absurdly simple! H: Quite so. Every problem is absurdly simple when it is explained to you.
- Terr_ 4mo ago
  Found the clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx6Dr1iJ4p8&t=3m13s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx6Dr1iJ4p8&t=3m13s
  - throw0101c 4mo ago
    Meta: I found this video essay (?) "Jeremy Brett vs Basil Rathbone — Who Was the Real Sherlock Holmes?" interesting: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaQFJcI_yfI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaQFJcI_yfI
    - 4mo ago
fugaziboutit 4mo ago
"Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte." ("I have made this longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.") Blaise Pascal
- kristiandupont 4mo ago
  I am reminded of this course in university where there was a written assignment with a minimum page count. Even at that time, I remember thinking: "If I am able to express everything necessary in just one page, that should give me the absolute top grade!".
- k3liutZu 4mo ago
  "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
  - dfhgdfghdfgdf 4mo ago
    "A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought." ― Dorothy Sayers
  - hansbo 4mo ago
    I read this in Leonard Nimoy's voice, from narrating Civilization IV.
godelski 4mo ago
> elegant solutions My favorite is how people will yell at you about how elegance doesn't matter, that they "just care that it works", and "keep it simple". I'm certain all the sayings repeated in industry are metastasized variants of actually good practices repeated by those who can't be bothered to understand what they mean. And of course that's true. We push for speed, absent of direction, while praising velocity. To be honest, at this point I'm disappointed the engineers gave up and just started becoming business people.
roncesvalles 4mo ago
Every company where I've worked at as a SWE openly rewarded "engineering complexity" as a criteria for getting promoted, which I've always found to be absurd because complexity can always be manufactured (both of the problem and the solution).
ocimbote 4mo ago
There was a thread recently on HN about Claude Shannon and how his papers were filled with clear descriptions and explanations. Then someone commented how they had found an elegant solution to a problem that either could be described shortly and beautifully so that a high schooler could understand or take the long and tedious path of a convoluted explanation. The director then clearly advised that they should use the complicated way because that's how you get published: not because you're clever, but because your solutions sound complicated. It resonates perfectly with your comment and it's an unfortunate reality that most people don't bother for beautiful solutions and praise complicated processes. That's how we neded up with bureaucracy, probably :D
dfhgdfghdfgdf 4mo ago
One of those days, however, you come up with another of your elegant, simple solutions and it actually replaces a 150K LoC monstrosity with either a 1K script or, even better, with nothing as a simple shift in perspective or process obsoletes it completely. In the long run, IME, you'll be recognized either by management or your peers if you keep doing that over and over again.
mrheosuper 4mo ago
"An idiot admires complexity, a genius admires simplicity"
- chorizo 4mo ago
  In academia that translates to, the more senior the faculty member, the easier the talk is to understand.
t43562 4mo ago
On the other hand, I don't help people with their computer problems anymore because I've found that the more difficult the problem, the longer it takes me to rescue their data or whatever the less impressed they are. The more miraculous the save the more likely they are to tell me the story about their nephew who solved a trivial issue instantly as if to point out that I didn't.
- robocat 4mo ago
  Things I won't work with: printers.
nomel 4mo ago
Yeap. Managers perceive complexity by how personally confused they are. I'm late in my career, and I'm realizing I wasted so many man years trying to make code clean, user friendly, and maintainable, when that code was never read by another person again and forgotten 15 minutes after it was released, then used for years. This is why I think AI is coming for our jobs much sooner than many people think: clean code, separation of concerns, maintainability, etc, all the things we spend the most time on, have never actually been valued. "Good enough" is fine, and keeps management happy. And, if something does pop up, AI can patch it, even if with spaghetti, just like fucking that ass at work.

by timmg 4mo ago

HerbManic 4mo ago

I have said it for decades - Basic is easy, Simple is hard. But when someone comes up with something simple but effective, it always looks so obvious in retrospect.

johnthescott 4mo ago

"elegance and speed go hand in hand" - d. mcilroy

npunt 4mo ago

I feel like AI coding is accelerating everyone's work toward greater solution complexity and I think it's pushing people to build defenses and be more averse to someone else's complexity rather than being impressed by it. Bigco's are probably well behind the curve on this and are still impressed by complexity, but for people on the receiving end of AI stuff either directly via your own hand or indirectly via others, it seems like complexity is not as impressive as it once was.

deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]
nomel 4mo ago
Definitely. Previously, intent and effort were required to increase complexity. Now intent and effort are required to prevent complexity*! But also, what a beautiful problem to have!

nullhole 4mo ago

The passage that comes to mind for me whenever this idea comes up, from the Brett version of the Holmes story "The Dancing Men": H: So, Watson. W: Hmm. H: You do not propose to invest in South African securities? W: How on earth do you know that? H: Now, confess, you are utterly taken aback. W: I am! H: I should make you sign a paper to that effect. W: Why? H: Because in a few minutes you will say it is all so absurdly simple. W: I should say nothing of the kind! H: You see, my dear Watson, it is not really difficult to construct a series of inferences, each dependent upon its predecessor and each simple in itself. If, after doing so, one simply knocks out the central inferences and presents one's audience with the starting point and the conclusion, one may produce a startling, though possibly a meretricious, effect. H: I can tell by an inspection of the groove between your left forefinger and thumb, that you have decided not to invest your small capital in the gold fields. W: I can see no connection. H: Very likely not; but I can quickly give you a close connection. H: Here are the missing links in the very simple chain: You had chalk between your forefinger and thumb when you returned from the club last night. You put chalk there when you play billiards, to ease the cue. You never play billiards except with Thurston. Now, Thurston, you told me, four weeks ago, had an option on some South African security which expired in a month, and which he desired you to share with him. Your checkbook is locked in my drawer, and you have not asked for the key. So, you do not propose to invest your money in that manner. W: How absurdly simple! H: Quite so. Every problem is absurdly simple when it is explained to you.

Terr_ 4mo ago
Found the clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx6Dr1iJ4p8&t=3m13s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx6Dr1iJ4p8&t=3m13s
- throw0101c 4mo ago
  Meta: I found this video essay (?) "Jeremy Brett vs Basil Rathbone — Who Was the Real Sherlock Holmes?" interesting: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaQFJcI_yfI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaQFJcI_yfI
  - 4mo ago

fugaziboutit 4mo ago

"Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte." ("I have made this longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.") Blaise Pascal

kristiandupont 4mo ago
I am reminded of this course in university where there was a written assignment with a minimum page count. Even at that time, I remember thinking: "If I am able to express everything necessary in just one page, that should give me the absolute top grade!".
k3liutZu 4mo ago
"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- dfhgdfghdfgdf 4mo ago
  "A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought." ― Dorothy Sayers
- hansbo 4mo ago
  I read this in Leonard Nimoy's voice, from narrating Civilization IV.

godelski 4mo ago

> elegant solutions My favorite is how people will yell at you about how elegance doesn't matter, that they "just care that it works", and "keep it simple". I'm certain all the sayings repeated in industry are metastasized variants of actually good practices repeated by those who can't be bothered to understand what they mean. And of course that's true. We push for speed, absent of direction, while praising velocity. To be honest, at this point I'm disappointed the engineers gave up and just started becoming business people.

roncesvalles 4mo ago

Every company where I've worked at as a SWE openly rewarded "engineering complexity" as a criteria for getting promoted, which I've always found to be absurd because complexity can always be manufactured (both of the problem and the solution).

ocimbote 4mo ago

There was a thread recently on HN about Claude Shannon and how his papers were filled with clear descriptions and explanations. Then someone commented how they had found an elegant solution to a problem that either could be described shortly and beautifully so that a high schooler could understand or take the long and tedious path of a convoluted explanation. The director then clearly advised that they should use the complicated way because that's how you get published: not because you're clever, but because your solutions sound complicated. It resonates perfectly with your comment and it's an unfortunate reality that most people don't bother for beautiful solutions and praise complicated processes. That's how we neded up with bureaucracy, probably :D

dfhgdfghdfgdf 4mo ago

One of those days, however, you come up with another of your elegant, simple solutions and it actually replaces a 150K LoC monstrosity with either a 1K script or, even better, with nothing as a simple shift in perspective or process obsoletes it completely. In the long run, IME, you'll be recognized either by management or your peers if you keep doing that over and over again.

mrheosuper 4mo ago

"An idiot admires complexity, a genius admires simplicity"

chorizo 4mo ago
In academia that translates to, the more senior the faculty member, the easier the talk is to understand.

t43562 4mo ago

On the other hand, I don't help people with their computer problems anymore because I've found that the more difficult the problem, the longer it takes me to rescue their data or whatever the less impressed they are. The more miraculous the save the more likely they are to tell me the story about their nephew who solved a trivial issue instantly as if to point out that I didn't.

robocat 4mo ago
Things I won't work with: printers.

nomel 4mo ago

Yeap. Managers perceive complexity by how personally confused they are. I'm late in my career, and I'm realizing I wasted so many man years trying to make code clean, user friendly, and maintainable, when that code was never read by another person again and forgotten 15 minutes after it was released, then used for years. This is why I think AI is coming for our jobs much sooner than many people think: clean code, separation of concerns, maintainability, etc, all the things we spend the most time on, have never actually been valued. "Good enough" is fine, and keeps management happy. And, if something does pop up, AI can patch it, even if with spaghetti, just like fucking that ass at work.