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Comment by markfsharp | Hacker News Reader

I don't know about other people's experience, but from mine, I see a lot (most) devs abstracting too early in the name of clean code. I guess engineers gonna engineer when simple boring repetition is sufficient and those premature abstraction are unnecessary.

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Yea lets build a whole docker setup for this little Sudoku app that never will have more than 100 users. I mean, for fun overengineering small projects can be a great learning experience but for work? Keep it simple, stupid.

(In case it wasn't clear, im agreeing with your point and just giving some example)

> lets build a whole docker setup for this little Sudoku app that never will have more than 100 users.

Looks good on the CV though and managers who hire-by-cv-not-sense love that kind of thing. You'd be amazed at how many interviews I've failed by pointing out that following the latest trends and over-engineering isn't always a good plan.

Also means there's a constant supply of work for contractors who can unpick that kind of gibberish back into reliable systems which is nice.

But do you really want to work at a company with managers that have zero technical experience? To me it always has been extremely annoying working with people that can't imagine the magnitude of work, that some "small" changes come with.

My current boss and company owner is also a programmer and its far easier and good for my nerves. He just doesnt have the time to code anymore.

If I had a penny for every time I try to dissuade a dev from busing a huge k8s system for a business that does not have a single user yet - I would have a bunch of pennies

I work for a Kubernetes Certified Service Provider and I dissuade people as well, it's so anti-climatic when embarking on a k8s journey and then having more pods which are overhead than the actual customer pods.

Yeah but what does simple mean? I struggle with that a lot. In my experience, keeping it simple means not being flexible when requirements change. Adding new features becomes tedious or even a mess. Keeping things simple is an art, certainly not an easy one.

Its extremely easy. Just dont overthink, implement the stuff you gotta implement and move on. Simplicity generates flexibility. Its also easier to refactor if your app isnt a architectural docker mess.

Boring repetition is a bad fit for the human brain. Working memory is very small. Mistakes per line are frequent. It wants to see patterns that are not quite there. Even when it works out, it's millions of times slower than having the computer fill in grunt work from a more concise and readable spec of the problem.

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