simplicity is the king

over engineering is masturbation for developers

i’ve been building things for a long time now, and for the most part, I’ve been sold on the idea that the best way to build software is to use the hottest frameworks, the latest libraries, to be the guy that knows every single tool in the toolbox, that I need to build the most feature-rich, most scalable, most maintainable app possible. that layers over layers of abstraction and following the rules of the ecosystem is the only way to build something that can grow and evolve over time.

but the truth is, most of the things I build don’t need to be scalable. they don’t need to be maintainable by a team of 100 people. they don’t need to be built with the latest and greatest tools. they just need to work, and they need to be built quickly. we quickly forget that our goal is to solve a problem, to create something that people can use, not to build something that makes you feel good about yourself as a developer.

at some point, you have to realize that over engineering is just masturbation for developers. it’s a way to feel like you’re doing something important, to feel like you’re building something great, without actually building anything at all. it’s a way to avoid the hard work of actually solving a problem, of actually creating something that people can use and confronting the fact that you won’t be able to build the perfect app.

is it really that simple?

build things that make you say “is it really that simple?” when you look at them, stop adding layers of abstraction, stop trying to make you feel good about yourself as a developer, and start feeling good about the fact that you built something that people can use, that solves a problem, that makes their lives better in some way. that’s the real joy of building things, and that’s the real reason we do it.

the best code is the code you don’t have to write.