KallyWeb Programming Made Fun

KISS – Keep It Simple, Stupid

KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid... this is one of the most basic principles that we, as humans, tend to forget quite often.  I was reading an awesome article (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/28/keep-it-simple-stupid) that describes this in great detail.

A few years ago, while I was a student in college, I turned in a solution to a computer project.  I was very satisfied with my solution.  It was long... it was complex... it solved the problem.  I got the project back with just one comment: "Keep It Simple".  Really?!  No "Awesome!" or "Excellent!"?  It wasn't until much later that I finally started to see why he put this on my paper.  The more simple the solution, the better the solution.  I then began making things as simples as possible.  Wow.  Talk about easy.  Once I started making problems as simple as possible the solution was almost always very simple.

I think that far too often we are excited when we get a problem that is complex.  Then, to complement that complex problem, we almost want a complex solution.  After all, a more complex solution means we are incredibly smart.

I began a kind of game with myself and the problems that I solve.  "How simple can I make the solution?"  I feel so much better when I have taken an extremely complex problem and solve it with a simple solution.