{"id":31192,"date":"2021-07-12T09:51:00","date_gmt":"2021-07-12T07:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmguide.nl\/development\/?p=31192"},"modified":"2021-07-13T12:13:11","modified_gmt":"2021-07-13T10:13:11","slug":"work-simpler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmguide.nl\/nl\/work-simpler\/","title":{"rendered":"Work simpler!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A familiar saying in business is to \u201cwork smarter, not harder\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>It generally\u202fmeans\u202fminimizing tasks and steps, so that one can be more effective or faster with the available resources. This usually means that clever software is written that gets the entire job done. However, requirements change over time and especially with larger projects\u00a0<\/span>further along in development,\u00a0<\/span>this\u00a0<\/span>means\u00a0<\/span>that exceptions\u00a0<\/span>and workarounds\u00a0<\/span>are written to handle the changing workload.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>In addition<\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>the original team\u00a0<\/span>will\u00a0<\/span>head off to new challenges and personnel turnover\u00a0<\/span>causes multiple handovers, reducing knowledge at each instance.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><\/div>\r\n\t\t<\/section>\r\n\t\t\t\t

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The gordian knot<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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If the solution is stable and no new requirements are made, like bronze statues<\/span><\/span>,<\/span><\/span><\/span> the solution gains a patina, and knowledge of the features diminishes until a black box\u00a0<\/span>with\u00a0<\/span>the<\/span>\u00a0old pains of the\u00a0<\/span>process\u00a0<\/span>is left. If development is ongoing<\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>the\u00a0<\/span>latest\u00a0<\/span>team<\/span>, through no fault of their\u00a0<\/span>own, often<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>lacks the bigger picture and quick fixes are chosen until what once was\u00a0<\/span>a beautiful tapestry becomes a\u00a0<\/span>Gordian <\/span>knot.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Eventually, a sword is taken to the knot, and pandora\u2019s little black box is opened for analysis to build the replacement. The old system becomes a legacy system while some smart people start working on the next clever system. As the French say: \u201cL’histoire se r\u00e9p\u00e8te\u201d.<\/span>\u00a0
<\/span>This cycle is largely unavoidable, new platforms\u00a0and\u00a0approaches\u00a0arise all the time and sometimes a complete replacement is unavoidable.\u00a0It can however be delayed.\u00a0<\/span>Any experienced developer\u00a0who is also a perfectionist\u00a0learns that although\u00a0the code may be concise and elegant, it also needs to be maintainable.\u00a0Write\u00a0a bit\u00a0more code to avoid having to reconceptualize the purpose\u00a0and ramifications later when modifications are needed.\u00a0The same principle applies to\u00a0the application at large.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>The smart solution is\u00a0not\u00a0the best solution\u00a0if\u00a0<\/span>a random <\/span>next\u00a0<\/span>developer cannot oversee the consequences you considered when writing it. I can hear you think \u201cDocument!\u201d but documentation takes time, is rarely kept up to date, and is only read in its entirety by the team creating it. When the considered consequences are about the interaction between multiple components of the code, the information could be in various places in the documentation and perhaps not with the component that needs changing.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Other issues that affect maintainability are the temptation to take a shortcut, combine different tasks into one component or have different components for the same task. Everyone knows this to be a no-no, but it is a smart fast way to do this change and we don\u2019t have a lot of time, so it does not really count this time and we can do it right later.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><\/div>\r\n\t\t<\/section>\r\n\t\t\t\t

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the complexity of simplicity<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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To avoid\u00a0becoming a\u00a0black box or a gordian knot,\u00a0you need a clear and simple design.\u00a0As anyone\u00a0who has tried\u00a0explaining\u00a0love\u00a0to a\u00a05-year-old\u00a0knows, keeping things simple is one of the hardest things to do.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Clearly explicitly defined responsibilities and tasks for each step in the process helps.\u00a0With multiple developers, opinions on where a task should be done can differ,\u00a0a good design\u00a0takes that away.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>A design that endeavors to have one way of working prevents multiple solutions to the same problem. This does not mean that there are no exceptions, but exceptions feedback into the main process as soon as possible, even if they must go back in the process a little.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Between steps, a good design has room for other components to be added. An open structure with room for new\u00a0additions without having to bypass the design\u00a0is a\u00a0design\u00a0that remains understandable.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>A good clear design will help future teams to resist the temptation for a shortcut or workaround but encourage them instead to fit their requirements in the existing structure since there is ample room for it.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

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Therefore, my personal motto is \u201cdon\u2019t work harder OR smarter but work simpler.\u201d<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><\/div>\r\n\t\t<\/section>\r\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The complexity of simplicity”. In this article, we will discover why keeping things simple is actually not that simple.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":33939,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"single-fullwidth.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uncategorized-en"],"menu_order":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmguide.nl\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmguide.nl\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmguide.nl\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmguide.nl\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmguide.nl\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31192"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/mmguide.nl\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33945,"href":"https:\/\/mmguide.nl\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31192\/revisions\/33945"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmguide.nl\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmguide.nl\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmguide.nl\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmguide.nl\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}