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It’s important to keep in mind that pretty much all the techniques you’re too „stupid“ for all aren’t necessities for small projects, but rather being able to manage complexity (or workload) at scale. For an MVP or a small product, keeping with the simpler techniques is absolutely fine, and adhering to those standards in many cases can even be considered overengineering.

Though there’s one thing I take issue with. „I’m too stupid“ implies that these techniques are impossible to understand, while I think it’s just a matter of being able to put in the time and effort to learn the intricacies. It’s absolutely fine if the resources (mainly time) aren’t available to you, but I don’t think it’s a matter of cognitive function.



By which I mean „I don’t have the time to learn X“ would be more precise, even if less catchy for a HN headline


It's a rhetorical device


> It’s important to keep in mind that pretty much all the techniques you’re too „stupid“ for all aren’t necessities for small projects, but rather being able to manage complexity (or workload) at scale

Most of the techniques people use to manage complexity at scale are too stupid to actually do that. Their only benefit is that following them prevents people from doing something even worse.

It also prevents people from doing anything better. Instead we dogmatically follow patterns with mountains of useless boilerplate and unnecessary abstraction, but somehow it's considered less complex.

I hate software sometimes.


Boilerplate and abstraction for the sake of it may be bad, sure, but there’s something to be said about having Standards anyone can adhere to. If I use a certain structure of code that requires more boilerplate but also means that anyone who has worked in that framework before knows exactly where to find and how to edit things, that’s a net gain, even more so in bigger teams. Think about tradeoffs, the most lean and elegant solution may not always be the best.




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