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1. Ivan Sagalaev (isagalaev@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 09-Jun-2022 16:39:07 UTC Ivan Sagalaev

   in reply to

   • Nolan

   @nolan one part that didn't sit right with me was "we love our own complex solutions". I don't have any statistics about it, but I can speak for myself that trying to dumb things down to the minimal working state has become, over the years, my main approach to design. I definitely encountered other people like that too.

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   • Nolan (nolan@toot.cafe)'s status on Thursday, 09-Jun-2022 16:39:08 UTC Nolan

     New blog post: "The collapse of complex software" https://nolanlawson.com/2022/06/09/the-collapse-of-complex-software/

     Some thoughts on how complexity creeps in to software, and whether we can learn anything from anthropology about it.

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   • Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅 (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Friday, 10-Jun-2022 08:23:47 UTC Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅

     in reply to

     • Nolan
     • Noel De Martin ⌛🧠🔥
     Yes!
     
     "Simple Made Easy" by Rich Hickey talks about the difference between simple and easy:
     
     farside.link/invidious/watch?v…
     
     www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKtk3H…
     
     There's also the oft-paraphrased Blaise Pascal quote: "[I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.]"
     
     @noeldemartin @nolan
   • Noel De Martin ⌛🧠🔥 (noeldemartin@noeldemartin.social)'s status on Friday, 10-Jun-2022 08:23:58 UTC Noel De Martin ⌛🧠🔥

     in reply to

     • Nolan

     @nolan Something to mention is that nobody creates complexity for complexity's sake (although I agree with the "we love our own complexity" part). The thing is that we have problems to solve, and most of the time the "easy solution" (ironically) is adding complexity. To actually make something simple takes more time, not less. That's why complexity tends to grow over time. Even if essential complexity does grow with the scope of a project, I'd argue most is accidental complexity.

   • rellik moo (idlestate@toot.cat)'s status on Saturday, 11-Jun-2022 08:17:16 UTC rellik moo

     in reply to

     • Nolan

     @nolan

     from my current reading of what I call "the Davids" (Graeber & Wengrow's "The Dawn of Everything") it seems the idea of "collapse" is itself fraught.

     It looks like a catastrophe when empires stopping doing their imperial things when viewed with an imperial outlook.

     From outside of this perspective, it's the rise & intrusion of imperialism in the first place that's the disaster.

     The Davids present very good cause to doubt the entire premise of those first few paragraphs.

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