Hacker Laws
23 comments
·March 30, 2025onionisafruit
Sometimes I see a post and immediately know it’s going to take over my day. I’ll probably spend at least three hours reading this and the linked wikipedia articles.
JSR_FDED
So many people get Occam’s razor wrong. I like the way you describe it as the least number of concepts and assumptions, rather than just “simplest”.
onre
I feel this is a side-effect of so many people getting "simple" wrong, as in, calling things simple because they superficially seem so, even while being aware of but ignoring the underlying complexities.
gozzoo
How is "least number of concepts and assumptions" different than “simplest”?
voidhorse
Completely agree. It's entirely about eliminating unnecessary distinctions, not about relative simplicity (which would need to be defined in context—we do not have a universal notion or measure of "simplicity" or complexity—any such notions we do have are domain dependent and usually observer dependent).
ksec
I often found when something involves an insanely large number or objects the 90–9–1 Principle holds true. But when things is smaller to medium size 80/20 can be used. But I still dont have a good / decent theory how to link the two together. I wonder if anyone has any materials on it.
bookofjoe
To the author: "Download the PDF eBook" link
https://github.com/dwmkerr/hacker-laws/releases/download/v0....
is broken
carlesfe
In case somebody comes looking for the working link: https://github.com/dwmkerr/hacker-laws/releases/download/v0....
dwmkerr
just saw this, fixing at the moment
PhilippGille
Good collection. One rule I found missing is the Rule of Three: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_three_(computer_prog...
dwmkerr
love it, tracking now
esafak
To the author: Nice site. The very first link, https://effective-shell/, is broken.
null
khaledh
I'd add Wirth's Law: Software gets slower faster than hardware gets faster.
mergy
Please add
Jevons Paradox
dwmkerr
on this list to go in: https://github.com/dwmkerr/hacker-laws/issues/446
null
Hoare's Law of Large Programs: Inside every large program is a small program struggling to get out.