New Job Title: Senior Simplicity Engineer

re: New Job Title: Senior Simplicity Engineer

derekslager — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 02:33:51 GMT

It has been said so well in the past, I won't try to summarize:

http://www.csd.uwo.ca/staff/magi/personal/humour/Computer_Audience/The%20Parable%20of%20the%20Two%20Programmers.html

re: New Job Title: Senior Simplicity Engineer

Peter Ritchie — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 02:50:46 GMT

Excellent idea. Maybe Simplicity Assurance? Or maybe a specialization of Quality Assurance? Engineers are notorious for makings things more complicated then they need to be.

re: New Job Title: Senior Simplicity Engineer

Kip — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 02:59:51 GMT

In light of Joel Spolsky's recent comments, maybe a Simplicity Manager is needed along with a Simplicity Engineer (or is that too complex?)

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/11/24.html

re: New Job Title: Senior Simplicity Engineer

mike — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 04:59:38 GMT

Doesn't it seem odd that you want to add someone to create something simpler? Very corporate though.

re: New Job Title: Senior Simplicity Engineer

tomasr — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 06:02:36 GMT

Brad: While I applaud your efforts to avoid complexity and simplify things (I really do; MS products are getting out of hand), I can't help but point out the irony in simplifying things by adding complexity through yet another role title in your already convoluted organizational structure :)

re: New Job Title: Senior Simplicity Engineer

Pete S — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 07:05:08 GMT

It would have to be someone both persuasive and influential who can stand up and say no to people's pet features. It's not easy to tell someone that their use case is not mainstream enough to deserve cluttering up the interface.

BTW, what exactly is "exposure"? Surface area of the API?

re: New Job Title: Senior Simplicity Engineer

Udi Dahan - The Software Simplist — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 15:06:46 GMT

I felt this exact thing (about 3 years ago) and that's why I feel so strongly about my title.

re: New Job Title: Senior Simplicity Engineer

Sébastien Lorion — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 15:19:34 GMT

I think you have to do "evangelization" of simplicity in your own team and developers at large, just as you have done with the Design Guidelines (maybe a follow-up?).

Until people do not get the gut feeling that some part of .NET ARE over engineered, you are swimming upstream. Almost all features coming out since and including .NET 2.0 are following a dangerous trend and causing many frustrations.

About the dependency problem (and also feature locations), you might want to look at this *excellent* post:

<a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/ralfw/archive/2006/08/27/.NET-naked-_2D00_-See-these-hitherto-unpublished-pictures-of-the-.NET-Framework-architecture.aspx">.NET naked - See these hitherto unpublished pictures of the .NET Framework architecture</a>.

re: New Job Title: Senior Simplicity Engineer

Sébastien Lorion — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 15:32:42 GMT

Fixed link:

http://weblogs.asp.net/ralfw/archive/2006/08/27/.NET-naked-_2D00_-See-these-hitherto-unpublished-pictures-of-the-.NET-Framework-architecture.aspx

Now I hope it works!

re: New Job Title: Senior Simplicity Engineer

diegocanepa — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 17:07:18 GMT

Hi Brad,

I'm the software architect and programmer of Karvonite. An agile persistente framework. I applied many of principles of your Framework Design Guidelines book.

- 80/20 rule

- Usage scenarios

- Addition through substraction

- Low entry point

Check the API documentation. I think this is the simplest persistence frameworks available. Of course it has some limitations.

Regards

Simplicity

Items — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 18:51:23 GMT

Очень интересную идею подсмотрел я у Brad Abrams . Он предлагает придумать новую должность - Senior Simplicity

re: New Job Title: Senior Simplicity Engineer

Mon, 27 Nov 2006 20:07:21 GMT

Things get too complex when you have the wrong people working on something or you set priorities the wrong way. Adding more people will only make things more complex.

1) Cut back in scope so people have more time to think about what they are doing.

2) Define early on what it is you are building and for whom and why.

3) Fire the people you are currenly promoting for "getting things done quickly".

4) Give more decision power to the people that get less done but can't sleep well until it's "perfect".

Simplicity is not a job role - it is an aspect of EVERY ROLE.

Instead of having another role you should think about unifying some of the roles you have so the person making design/implementation decisions actually understands the different aspects of what is being built.

re: New Job Title: Senior Simplicity Engineer

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 02:12:04 GMT

The title you're thinking of is "Architect." Open your copy of "The Mythical Man-Month" and reference "conceptual integrity" in the index.

Simplicity and features always compete.

One person must have responsibility for both. A pair, one responsible for features and the other for simplicity will never achieve consensus.

re: New Job Title: Senior Simplicity Engineer

snprbob86 — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 06:32:19 GMT

You don't need another role, nor do you need even need to list additional responsibilities for your existing people. Instead, simply make simplicity a measure of success.

re: New Job Title: Senior Simplicity Engineer

JSS — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 02:42:41 GMT

I'm the technical lead for a subdivision of a company who's small engineering team is in Shanghai, which is to say that it's mostly a junior team. One of my responsibilities is to help maintain a level of quality within our code. I didn't realize it when I started the job, but much of that responisibility boils down to exactly what you describe. On one occasion, after an ineffectual email thread on the subject w.r.t. a given class, I decided to simply rewrite most of it as a demonstration to the team. When I was done (it only took about four hours), I counted lines of code to compare. The rewrite was 70% smaller. They incorporated the changes, which will probably save us way more than four hours in bug fixing and maintenance down the road.

To answer your question, I don't think a new job title is needed. I agree with a previous comment about Architect filling the role already. That said, the Architect has to be watching implementation as it happens because the best laid plans can be implemented poorly.

re: New Job Title: Senior Simplicity Engineer

David Douglass — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 04:09:22 GMT

I tried. I told management they were wasting money, creating huge delays in the schedule, and creating a maintenance nightmare. They threw up their hands and told the techs (3 of us) to work it out. I was voted down 2 to 1 by the lovers of complexity.

re: New Job Title: Senior Simplicity Engineer

SamDruk — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 07:05:08 GMT

tomasr, see Law 5

http://lawsofsimplicity.com/category/laws?order=ASC

re: New Job Title: Senior Simplicity Engineer

Marc Brooks — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 09:53:02 GMT

I'll nominate one of your own... Shawn Burke is the engineer you are looking for...