

Chuck Moore on the Lost Art of Keeping It Simple - gruseom
http://www.simple-talk.com/opinion/geek-of-the-week/chuck-moore-on-the-lost-art-of-keeping-it-simple/

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penguat
I find this interesting:

"Second, it’s irresistible to anticipate the future and expect the problem to
grow in a certain direction. Thus code is added to facilitate future changes,
which rarely occur. This is a good strategy, but can be put off until the
future arrives."

Should we even know what the future is likely to hold? I'm in a big corporate
- perhaps that skews things where I am, but we have a relatively clear roadmap
for the next couple of months at least, and I am loath to ignore that,
although I am mindful of the problem mentioned as well: I don't try to solve
future problems before we get there.

Should I cease specifically allowing for them?

NB the organisation I am working in allows approximately 2% of developers'
time for refactoring.

~~~
protomyth
I found it harder in large enterprises to anticipate the future with any
certainty. One of the big problems was changing laws. Anytime the legislator
is in session can cause serious changes in software. I remember a whole
release totally shot because of changes in how reporting was done for the
government.

I often wonder what would happen if some fundamental change occurred that
affected a basic assumption of a lot of software. The nastiest example would
be civil unions allowing more than 2 partners. That would probably destroy a
goodly chunk of release schedules in most enterprises.

I think the simpler you keep it will help when you really need to change
something. Programming in Forth really let you feel that.

------
untangle
Chuck Moore is one of my heros, and has been since those '70s that he talks
about.

Try as I might, I have had a hellofatime using Forth (and now Factor) to get
nontrivial things done. But I keep trying, because I find the philosophy so
compelling. And I figure I'll learn something.

He has always considered Forth to be a 'personal leverage' tool rather than a
programming system suited to a team. Similar in this regard to Lisp and J I
suppose. The fact that he has never hired a programmer (!) reinforces this
notion.

I wish him luck with his chips....

Bob

