I’ve always been a simple person. I appreciate clean lines as a minimalist would, and my thought patterns have always been like a reverse binary tree. Starting from the bottom and finding the top; deductive; focused on the big picture. And so it’s in my nature to appreciate simplicity, minimalism and true value.

Oddly enough, the programming world is not very pro-minimalism, except the UX guys, maybe, on the outside at least. The predominant mentality in the field is the one of ‘the more the better’, since creation is our kind of superpower and it’s for free. We are constantly creating and creating because it’s a thing that’s encouraged and praised and it doesn’t necessarily matter what’s the object of your creation, as long as you’re doing something that others might use.

Is it all of it useful though? I’m not so sure myself, but the scenario that we are maybe over-complicating things can’t be brushed off by someone like me.

I feel very strongly that in the software world good progress is being measured by the declining complexity. Give me the same services but make my life easier. Give me more services but don’t make my life harder. That’s a good line of action. Problem is that not everyone thinks so and would rather make my life difficult in order to give me something that has little value. And yeah, I get it, things are very complicated in those kinds of decisions and yeah, there will be times when the necessary evil is necessary. My reasonable request though, would be to put simplicity back in the extra cool category, encourage it and praise it, a little bit more than the mindless ‘oh cool, you made something’. I’m not talking about practice projects obviously.

Simplicity is super cool. Unify separate stuff. Make something that replaces 5 existing separate things. Instead of making more noise, reduce the noise. That’s what I stand by. Just put some more thought into your creating.

Peace.