Thread

First Principles Thinking

287 points · 138 comments · sunils34

flowerlad · 1790359376 · focus · HN ↗
From the blog he linked to: "I’m going to try designing something way more ambitious."
This is how you end up with unnecessary complexity [1]. The best engineers don't aim for "designing something ambitious", instead they come up with the simplest possible design. They take something that seems complex and make it simple.
Unfortunately that's not how engineers are evaluated [2].
[1] <a href="https://goomics.net/316" rel="nofollow">https://goomics.net/316
[2] <a href="https://terriblesoftware.org/2026/03/03/nobody-gets-promoted-for-simplicity/" rel="nofollow">https://terriblesoftware.org/2026/03/03/nobody-gets-promoted...
1. themgt · 1790359946 · focus · HN ↗
  The best engineers don't aim for "designing something ambitious", instead they come up with the simplest possible design
  These are orthogonal.
  A lot of the dissonance on HN appears to come from two groups of people talking past each other:
  a) developers working at some corporation they hate vs.
  b) developers working for themselves or somewhere they don't hate
  1. nextzck · 1790360378 · focus · HN ↗
    Orthogonal does not simply mean different.. simple and ambitious designs often run askew of each other but they can also share the same line.
    y1n0 · 1790373529 · focus · HN ↗
    Orthogonal means independent. One doesn’t inherently affect the other.

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