“I say, forget all that and ask yourself, "What's the simplest thing that could possibly work?"”

— Ward Cunningham

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), The Simplest Thing that Could Possibly Work
Context: You are always taught to do as much as you can. Always put checks in. Always look for exceptions. Always handle the most general case. Always give the user the best advice. Always print a meaningful error message. Always this. Always that. You have so many things in the background that you're supposed to do, there's no room left to think. I say, forget all that and ask yourself, "What's the simplest thing that could possibly work?"
I think the advice got turned into a command: "Do the simplest thing that could possibly work." That's a little more confusing, because there isn't this notion that as soon as you've done it, we'll evaluate it.

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Ward Cunningham 69

American computer programmer who developed the first wiki 1949

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