Revolution of Simplicity

(Senior Solutions Architect) Posted 12/16/2004
Comments (1) | Trackbacks (1)

We live in the exciting times (if you are the type that software development can excite you),
and I feel fortunate to somehow be part of that revolution that is going on.

If you rewind the film just five years back (late 1999) you will find the
world where complexity, proprietress and prescriptive software development ruled.
If I would go back in time and mention to someone that EJBs are too complex and bulky to be used for any e-business development,
that software could be developed in an Agile, minimalist way,
and that your architect is doing you a disservice by creating these complex,
distributed architectures - one would look at me like I am
charlatan and he/she would send me straight back to the future as fast as possible
(losing the chance to hear which stock he/she should not buy the next year).

Seriously, these are great times.
Open source mindset and technology offerings have created this fertile
ground for free thinking and open mindness in the software development.
What inspired me the most to write this entry is the great book by Rod Johnson
J2EE Development Without EJB" .
In this book, among many other things Rod argues that simple is good and that complex is not necessarily better.
He is not saying anything new that you should not trust.
I remember reading Einstein's quote in my discrete math book:
"Things should be as simple as possible, but not simpler.".
Actually, while writing this article I found the whole set of
wisdoms on simplicity.

This whole movement towards pragmatic simplicity may finally alter the
minds not only in the area of J2EE architecture, but also in the areas of

formal software process methodology

change and configuration management

testing and verification (QA)

Simplicity is an important subject that has to be vigorously pursued. I think that we all have been missing the point for decades by insisting on over-engineered, industrial-like software methodologies that attempted to bring the order to the software chaos by creating the complex methods to describe and prescribe complexity.
I think that simplification may have a better chance of bringing the order
to the chaos.

The only thing you need to have in order to recognize and pursue
simplicity is:

A. courage (to pursue change)
B. competence (to recognize essentials)
C. open mind (to be pragmatic)

I will have multiple future entries on this whole simplicity movement.
It is just too important to be let go easily.

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Barry Velasquez writes:

4/16/2006 #

I also have discovered the value of simplicity in design. Although ironic, it is sometimes a very complex and difficult progression a person must make in order to achive the kind of balance referred to by Einstein. To make things "as simple as possible, but no simpler" is a kind of art. Maybe the key is simplifying your life and the approach you take towards life, and then simple designs and implementations will follow.

Barry
http://www.simplicityfirst.org

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I am jumping on the simplicity bandwagon
I am jumping on the simplicity bandwagon. So are Microsoft. So are IBM.

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