Why do software developers love complexity?
44 comments
·September 15, 2025taeric
I'm not entirely clear what the argument being made is. Simple tools are simple, sure.
But there is an awful lot of complexity in otherwise simple things. Just look at hand tools and see the difference between a power drill and a power driver. And realize that asking which one is simpler is a bit of a red herring. Even better, try and guess which one was created first.
I think, often times, people mistake the results of something from the tools that went into it. Such that it can be tempting to think that simple looking creations were made with simple tools. As often, the opposite is the case. It takes complicated tools to build something that looks simple.
Maybe the argument was that you put more effort and work into what you are building than you do that which you use to build it? I think that is largely fair.
That is actually somewhat in focus when discussing a pen versus the "penzilla." For one, building a pen is a surprisingly difficult thing to do. Especially at scale. For two, people rarely want to have a pen for the sake of owning a pen. Instead, you want to write something.
nomel
Here's semi related talk about simple/complex and easy/hard [1].
[1] "Simple Made Easy" - Rich Hickey (2011) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23905051
selcuka
I think this is not the point of the argument. Power driver solves a problem, but not everyone has that problem. Some jobs just need a drill.
The article argues that while React solves a problem, not everyone actually has a problem that requires the complexity of React (i.e. "Build pyramids if you must").
taeric
Right, my point was more that thinking you can guess the simplicity of a solution based on the complexity of the tools used to build it is a bit misleading. If only because most simple tools are far more complicated than that allows.
Similarly, I would argue that using complex tools to build something generally results in less complicated outcomes. Our computers are basically evidence of that.
quickthrowman
> Just look at hand tools and see the difference between a power drill and a power driver. And realize that asking which one is simpler is a bit of a red herring. Even better, try and guess which one was created first.
I would assume the power drill was created first if you include human powered drills, screws came much later than pretty much every other kind of simple machine, and until machine tools were invented, screws as fasteners didn’t really exist outside of specialized applications. They were used for presses and applying force.
John Henry was competing against a steam powered rock drill in the folk tale about him.
If you define power tools as tools driven by electric motors, I would still guess that the drill came before the driver, as rivets seem to be more popular in the steam engine to electric transition period than bolts or screws were.
Slightly confusing things is the fact that a modern drill is almost always a driver too, unless it’s a specific kind of drill like a hammer drill or core drill. Confusing things even more, there are drill bits that are meant to be used with an impact driver, a tool that is used to tighten or loosen fasteners.
As for which is simpler, drill vs (impact) driver, it’s hard to say. A drill has a clutch, and an impact driver has a spring mechanism that applies rotational force when the motor is at its limit. I’d say both are fairly complex, the impact driver is probably a bit more complex than a drill.
I’m curious about the development and history of power tools but it can be difficult to find information about it.
kccqzy
Love this kind of comment, where one commenter poses a thought experiment about something I'm unfamiliar with, another commenter explains it in full seriousness.
taeric
Your progression of "confusing things" happening several times is exactly what I was hoping to elicit. And is why I think it is a bit of a red herring to ask which is simpler.
ks2048
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yeahs000
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MobiusHorizons
Lots of engineering disciplines enjoy complexity. It is challenging, and doing challenging things feels like an accomplishment, or demonstration of skill. I think software gets away with higher levels of complexity than I typically see in other engineer disciplines because it has a lower negative impact from the perspective of the business or the end customer. In auto manufacturing, for instance, complexity not only increases r&d costs, it also increases performance unit costs, and typically reduces reliability and maintenance costs (both of which are usually visible to end users). In software, complexity may appear to reduce r&d costs by reusing code in suboptimal ways, but the end effect is marginal slower, marginally higher binary size, and higher maintenance costs, but the end user doesn’t really ever see the direct maintenance cost, just a subscription price or support contract.
Imagine reusing an entire physical assembly for only one of its functions (eg a microwave to get a clock) this is the sort of thing we do in software all the time, but would immediately fall apart in other disciplines.
jvm___
We can't see software.
You can see if a motherboard has twice the necessary components, or if a robot arm just looks wrong, but if your algorithm to process 1000 records takes a thousand times longer than it should (but still finishes in 100 milliseconds) no one notices.
null
sergius
This is a perennial problem, see The Mythical Man Month
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month
Or if you wan to have more fun read Systemantics
osigurdson
I think complexity used to sell (real architects used abstract factory factories). Today, simplicity sells and while far better I think it can lead people to do dumb things sometimes. There isn't any problem with simplicity of course but rather what people define simplicity to mean. Sometimes it means things like "let's write our own database", because it is "simpler". Ultimately we are going to need language that is more precise.
bsenftner
That an entire population wide brush ya got there. Not true at all. In many many cases, an initial implementation that is supposed to be figuring out the problem is never revised, just shipped. All these "complex code bases" are premature code that will never see maturity, just patches by an ever increasing population that understands the problem less.
gbraad
Weird take: rather the opposite in my team. We look for the simpler solutions due to maintenance burden. Also, we actually deal with very complex tech; virtualization. Our whole premise is to create tooling for convenience, which therefore involves abstractions.
Some complexity in that case is needed, but its aim is to provide a cleaner/simpler access, which is often opinionated, limited to the purpose we have: deployment of development tools for containers.
If you want to experiment, show off as the article implies, start a hobby project.
Edit: removed some fat-fingered typos when I wrote this on a phone
djmips
Elsewhere on HN https://iaziz786.com/blog/boring-work-needs-tension/
Complexity adds tension.
Bored Software developers add complexity to make their jobs more interesting is my take.
bob1029
Technological complexity is often like a warm blanket you can wrap yourself in to avoid the realities of the customer.
Many businesses are built in such a way that you have little hope of directly contacting your customer, but that doesn't mean you can't try. The desire for complexity often disappears like magic when a developer gets to experience a client expressing happiness over the end results of their "clunky" tech stack.
sass_muffin
"Simplicity is the most difficult of all concepts" -Brian Herbert
sharts
Status and the appearance of being smart.
chubs
I have a bee in my bonnet about this software complexity issue. Perhaps it takes large amounts of humility to accept that your job is fairly mundane, and only needs simple code to get the job done? I mean: who wants to turn spanners on a Toyota when you can imagine you're working for NASA, and introduce fascinating new paradigms to your work, that ultimately add complexity. I suspect that's why i've joined so many teams that have tied themselves up in knots of un-grok-able indirection. Another theory I have is that people encounter bad code, and misdiagnose it, identifying the (wrong) solution as needing a big complex architecture.
LPisGood
I think it’s actually easier to make code more complex than it is to identify simple elegant solutions that will continue to work as the code expands.
bigfatkitten
Gotta pad your CV/promo packet somehow.
nomel
It's pure dopamine, from the process, for me. "Eureka!" is a hell of a drug.
rvz
There you go. Instead: compression, efficiency and speed are better traits of intelligence in software engineers building these systems and being aware of trade-offs.
Rather than building rube goldberg contraptions and not only it is difficult to refactor them but can kill the entire business if the maintenance costs continue to increase.
tamimio
If you really want to work with the most pretentious, attention-seeking, optics-loving people, work in robotics. God dammit, how I love the field, but most people there are insufferable.
> Build pyramids if you must, but build them like the Egyptians did: with a clear purpose
For dim people, like myself. What was the "clear purpose" for Egypt to build giant stone pyramids? Maybe the rest of this will fall into place for me when I understand that.