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While I’m honored whenever anybody appreciates important design choices where I’ve been involved, this is not quite right, and it’s a little embarrassing to be
by drawkbox 11y ago
While I’m honored whenever anybody appreciates important design choices where I’ve been involved, this is not quite right, and it’s a little embarrassing to be the inventor of something so simple.
Actually, UDP was “un-designed” by me and others. By this I mean that UDP was the final expression of a process that today we would call “factoring” an overly complex design.
Actually he should not be embarrassed. Engineering at the core is taking something complex and making it simple, as simple as can be but not too simple. It takes tons of effort to simplify. That is why most engineers/developers think that complexity shows their knowledge, it is actually the direct reverse of that. But where you try to simplify you will feel currents pulling you the other way and you'll have to swim upstream for a bit.
Thank you for inventing UDP and by inventing I mean simplifying something unnecessarily complex into something usable. It has been the key to many game technologies and has made possible and been a base platform for some wonderfully complex things, simply by being simple. Complexity only through simple parts.
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher
“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”
― Confucius
- vacri 11y agoI think a better term than 'simple' is 'appropriate'. Unnecessary guff is inappropriate, as is unnecessary simplicity. By stating that simplicity is the goal, we end up with designers who oversimplify, thinking that that is good design. A tool should be appropriate for use, which naturally includes "but not too simple".
- sitkack 11y agoI think the word you are looking for is 'simplistic'.
- jacobolus 11y agoIf you haven’t seen them, I recommend the Clojure guys’ talks about the subject of simplicity. They reached into the etymological history of the word “simple” to pull out its early definition, which is quite precise and IMO tremendously useful in this context, unlike the confused muddle of modern definitions. Rich Hickey, “Simple Made Easy”: http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy Stu Halloway, “Simplicity Ain’t Easy”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cidchWg74Y4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cidchWg74Y4
- bjeanes 11y agoI too would encourage people seeing the parent comment to definitely watch those videos. The Rich Hickey talk especially has shaped a lot of my thinking in the last few years.
- TickleSteve 11y agowell said. Its difficult making complicated things seem simple.