Skip to content

Let's normalize removing complexity

Juan Luis @ #PyConNA 🇳🇦
Dec 16, 20251 min read
1

here are 2 ways of fixing this LEGO® bridge. Which one you prefer? And how does that translate to building software?


You look at all this complexity, and think: "let's create more tooling, let's write more docs, let's add more examples, let's ship an MCP".

I look at all this complexity, and think: "let's urgently simplify all this, for the love of Knuth".

We are not the same.

In the age of hyper-abundance (formerly encouraged by Zero Interest Rates™ and Cheap RAM, always subsidized by colonial extraction, the environment, and our future generations), the skill that I appreciate the most and the one that I find more difficult to find is just saying "no" to unnecessary complexity.

This has a scientific name: "addition bias". *People systematically overlook subtractive changes* (that's literally the name of the paper).

If your software product is so complex that the only *bearable* way to work with it is with AI... then I don't want to touch them with a laser pointer.

Nowadays, we rarely need more. We often need less, less, less.

Let's normalize removing complexity.

Did you enjoy this article?

Recommend it — Standard Reader surfaces well-loved writing to more readers across the network.

Across the AtmosphereDiscussions