KISS

Today's buzzzzword for simplicity is: KISS.

Have you never heard of it (and I don't mean smooching) before?

KISS is an acronym used in the computer industry (and elsewhere) for Keep It Simple Stupid. Well, I'm the first one to admit, it's not nice to call anyone "stupid" or "dummy" or other such things, but we seem to have become comfortable with these epitaphs in American society.

The idea behind KISS is to write the simplest code that will get the job done. Even when you are architecting complex systems, you try to think about the implications of added complexity, and boil things down to their essence, so that you can design software that follows the KISS principle. If it is written and organized in a manner that is "simple" as in: (a) easy to follow, (b) easy to decompose (c) easy to repeat and reproduce (d) easy to implement, then you will be building better software.

Now I noticed when I started this blog that there is a lot of material to be found on the internet when you google for simplicity. A lot of it has to do with management, and business operations. It seems like the more complex a business organism is, the more they are pushing for simplicity. But it also seems like, in some cases, you end up requiring more documentation, more technical artifacts in general, when you try to simplify things.

I've noticed there is a coincidence between this phenomonon in the business world and my personal life. The more simple things are on the surface, the more complex they are beneath the surface. I think that the attainment of simplicity is a true artform. Just as the greatest and most simple artworks of antiquity (take Mona Lisa for example) are incredibly complex, so is life in general.

Let me extapolate to the phenonmenon of simplicity in living. What do you think of? Going back to our historic roots? Farm life, family living, living off the land? Well it turns out, as I've found in my studies, farm life is extremely hard work and tedious: as is living off the land. There are tons of new skills you must learn to supplement the old ones. In fact, such simple living is far from uncomplicated. Just taking care of a horse, for example, is a discipline that seems like it is far beyond my potential skills and comprehension.

Where am I going with all this? My point here is that behind simplicity is a collective complexity. Simplifying life is not about throwing everything out, but it is about organizing everything: organizing everything in such a way that with all the complexity life becomes fairly simple to live day by day.

Cheers for now!
And K.I.S.S. And I mean it!

Basil