This post is dedicated to the memory of Niklaus Wirth, a computing pioneer who passed away January 1st. In 1995 he wrote an influential article called “A Plea for Lean Software”, and in what follows, I try to make the same case nearly 30 years later, updated for today’s computing horrors.
The really short version: the way we build/ship software these days is mostly ridiculous, leading to 350MB packages that draw graphs, and simple products importing 1600 dependencies of unknown provenance.
Old enough to remember when folks took pride in how few lines of code they could write to get something done. Not unreadably dense undocumented code. Just lean, clean, and efficient.
There’s still a place for large complex software, but 99% of business apps that just move text strings, datetime values, and decimals around from point A to point B aren’t that place.
A-fucking-men.
Been removed about this for years to deaf ears.
Old enough to remember when folks took pride in how few lines of code they could write to get something done. Not unreadably dense undocumented code. Just lean, clean, and efficient.
There’s still a place for large complex software, but 99% of business apps that just move text strings, datetime values, and decimals around from point A to point B aren’t that place.