Engineering definition: elegant

Elegant (adj.): “I’m being an unnecessarily clever d!ck about this, and that’s going to open up a lorry-sized hole in my design that I won’t see because I’m being too smug about how clever this solution is. Oh, and it’ll be harder to fix, understand, build, troubleshoot, and use, but I saved $.000001 on each unit by committing untold future resources to solving the problems I don’t know I just made. It also took far longer to design than it would have had I done it in a more conventional manner, but that’s okay, because design time is free and per-unit cost is king.”

KISS is the alternative to "elegant", and frequently results in designs which are MORE elegant than trying to be clever produces.

Comments

  1. ColinJanuary 27, 2011 at 2:39 PM

    "When in doubt, use brute force."
    --Ken Thompson

    I read that quote very early in my programming career. It has served me well.

    ReplyDelete

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