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Strive for design simplicity; you never have to fix anything
you leave out. -- Bill Lear (1903-1978)
All that is complex is not useful. All that is useful is simple. -- Mikhail Kalashnikov (1919-2013)
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved
from a simple system that worked.
A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be
made to work. You have to start over, beginning with a system
that works.
Be warned that being an expert is more than understanding how a system is supposed to work. Expertise is gained by investigating why a system doesn't work. -- Brian Redman, Bell Communications Research
Basically, avoid comments. If your code needs a comment to be understood, it would be better to rewrite it so it's easier to understand. --Rob Pike
Comments on data are usually much more helpful than on algorithms. --Rob Pike
Nobody is really smart enough to program computers. --Steve McConnel, Code Complete
Ninety percent of the software gets written in 10 percent of the time. The next 9.5 percent takes 90 percent of the time. The last one-half percent never gets done, but the software still gets sold. --George Morrow, Quotations of Chairman Morrow (1984)
Programmers are always surrounded by complexity; we cannot avoid it. Our applications are complex because we are ambitious to use our computers in ever more sophisticated ways. Programming is complex because of the large number of conflicting objectives for each of our programming projects. If our basic tool, the language in which we design and code our programs, is also complicated, the language itself becomes part of the problem rather than part of its solution. -- C.A.R. Hoare, ACM Turing Award Lecture 1980, "The Emperor's Old Clothes" A good scientific theory does not need to include everything we know about the subject. It needs to include only the stuff that is necessary for getting the job done. --Peter Turchin, University of Connecticut I conceive that the chief aim of the physicist in discussing a theoretical problem is to obtain 'insight' --- to see which of the numerous factors are particularly concerned in any effect and how they work together to give it. For this purpose a legitimate approximation is not just an unavoidable evil; it is a discernment that certain factors --- certain complications of the problem --- do not contribute appreciably to the result. We satisfy ourselves that they may be left aside; and the mechanism stands out more clearly freed from these irrelevancies. This discernment is only a continuation of a task begun by the physicist before the mathematical premises of the problem could even be stated; for in any natural problem the actual conditions are of extreme complexity and the first step is to select those which have an essential influence on the result --- in short, to get hold of the right end of the stick. --A. S. Eddington, The Internal Constitution of the Stars, 1926, pp 101-2 Any time a survey requires an action from the respondent, you're inviting him to decide that the extra effort is not worth it, and to give up.
But you should never underestimate the lack of effort that has been given
to solving the most common design problems, particularly online.
All in all, the number of lines of code dedicated to error checking and fault handling was roughly equal to the lines of code that actually processed or otherwise handled the data. -- J.M. Hughes, Embedded Image Data Processing on Mars
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