I respect all three authors deeply but this is my first time reading Tellman's take. His idea that "simplicity is not intrinsic ... Simplicity is a fitness between software and our expectations" has a very nice ring to it.
Contrast that with Hickey's notion of simplicity as an objective count of interleaved concerns or "folds". The quibble with this is, how do you delineate the concerns? Depending on your style and knowledge of the system, you'll get a different number. So it's hard to call it objective.
Tellman's definition is nice because it acknowledges the subjectivity, and puts it front and center. IOW the "style and knowledge of the system" form a mental model of the software system. What's important is not the cardinality, OR the interleaving. It's the ability for that model to make good predictions about the software's behavior. Accurate model held in the minds of humans that operate it == simple software.
chii · 8m ago
The hickey definition is from the POV of the engineer - the creation of software with simplicity. Code that is simple, doesn't necessarily result in a piece of software that is simple for the end-user.
The tellman's version is for the end user - simplicity of use, by the user, with their existing expectation, culture and pre-knowledge. It's basically describing skeuomorphism in software (but not limited to just UI). It might be enormously complicated to create for the engineer, while it remains simple for the end-user.
motorest · 11m ago
Quantifying software complexity is still largely an open problem. There are approaches that focus on quantifying but are arguably of limited use due to their disconnect with mental models, and there are approaches that focus on evaluating mental models but can't be objectively quantified. The best output from the latter group is that they can serve as guidelines on how to make simple software systems,and how to keep them simple.
readthenotes1 · 1h ago
I read a research article long ago that said that most of the complexity measures investigated at the time were highly correlated with loc.
For example, it's nice to measure McCabe cyclomatic complexity, and it generally rings true, but if you can't be bothered - just look at LOC and you'll get pretty close
n0n0n4t0r · 16m ago
For those who will stumble as me: Loc = lines of code.
(He he, we were talking about complexity, weren't we?)
Contrast that with Hickey's notion of simplicity as an objective count of interleaved concerns or "folds". The quibble with this is, how do you delineate the concerns? Depending on your style and knowledge of the system, you'll get a different number. So it's hard to call it objective.
Tellman's definition is nice because it acknowledges the subjectivity, and puts it front and center. IOW the "style and knowledge of the system" form a mental model of the software system. What's important is not the cardinality, OR the interleaving. It's the ability for that model to make good predictions about the software's behavior. Accurate model held in the minds of humans that operate it == simple software.
The tellman's version is for the end user - simplicity of use, by the user, with their existing expectation, culture and pre-knowledge. It's basically describing skeuomorphism in software (but not limited to just UI). It might be enormously complicated to create for the engineer, while it remains simple for the end-user.
For example, it's nice to measure McCabe cyclomatic complexity, and it generally rings true, but if you can't be bothered - just look at LOC and you'll get pretty close