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principles:keep_it_simple_stupid [2025-11-04 21:52] – created colequinn8555principles:keep_it_simple_stupid [2025-11-25 10:53] (current) – old revision restored (2021-10-20 21:09) christian
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-Of course, you can't simply expect a job to to succumb to your lap without any effort. Every one of these healthcare jobs will require some training, and place your changes that beginning from it, the greater off you'll be. After all, this economy will not wait it is possible to pick up that fresh. Start training today!+====== Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS) ======
  
-If you have ever wondered this took to be outrageous inside your marketing you'll come to discover that this article has a very good example that designed a homeless person over $75.00 in under an minute.+===== Variations and Alternative Names =====
  
-Many of this best [[http://fact18.com/bbs/board.php?bo_table=free&wr_id=11690|新潟市中央区 整骨院]] ETFs are those which a great attachment to investors. This comes contrary to the connection to the nature found in a specific illness. This helps the investor to design more returnfrom something of that they are personally invested. Readers isusing more control they cane easily see a healthy return. It will then counterbalances for expenses toward pretty own or others treatments. Specialists are encouraging not earn money . healthcare RTF motivatorAnother is your state of present-day health care system.+  * (Rule of) Simplicity 
 +  * KISS may also mean "Keep it short and simple""keep it simple and straightforward""keep it smart and simple", etcA large amount of variations exists.
  
-Knowing how well the department is functioning, can reduce patient waiting times, as there'll be enough beds and staffIn busy departments like A and E, the wait time could be caused by lack of staff and also a regarding cubicles. Reporting systems can identify to view the leonids the busy times and places will be, to be sure that no department is understaffed.+**Remarks**: "Stupid" may be interpreted as an adjective or a noun. Compare the two variants "keep it simple and stupid" vs"keep it simple, stupid!". Despite all these alternative names, the general idea of the KISS principle is always the same.
  
-I would feel better if Obama would feature an exit campaign. Why can't he propose an honest review in 2020. Ask how lots of are still uninsured. What medical services are being denied certain groups (elderly)? Has there been a rationing of services? Can there be longer waits to getting urgent correct? What is the condition of terminal programs for the terminally hurt? How many people are dying simply can't get adequate care when will need it? You get the drift. 
  
-If your MCAT score is low, you can still take the MCAT when. Just be aware that schools are able to see Acupuncture clinic all your MCAT rating. So if you do better, they'll see in which it. If you do worse, they notice too.+===== Context =====
  
-The corporations have been blasted by Obama Osteopathic clinic and all of the the liberals. During could this yapping the people of these terrible companies have grown. How is that possible? How has this become a sweet deal for the companies?+  * [[contexts:Object-Oriented Design]] 
 +  * [[contexts:Architecture]] 
 +  * [[contexts:User Interface Design]] 
 +  * [[contexts:Implementation]]
  
-If you've ever 新潟市中央区 整骨院 wondered this really took to become outrageous with your marketing you'll come uncover that suggestions has an extremely good example that made a homeless person over $75.00 in slightly below an hours.+===== Principle Statement =====
  
-There are legion similarities within two professions, even though they have different names. Some of the similarities between an T.D. and a B.O. are that each are Acupuncture clinic licensed compose prescriptions, both understand pathology of the persons body and to treat it, and both can practice the full scope of Western medicine in all 50 states of the U.S, including surgery and specialties.+A simple solution is better than a complex one, even if the solution looks stupid
  
-Knowing how good the department is functioning, can reduce patient waiting times, as there'll be enough beds and staff. In busy departments like A and E, the wait time could be caused any lack of staff and also a connected with cubicles. Reporting systems can identify where and when the busy times and places will be, making no department is understaffed. 
  
-Why so many? And why is it that the numbers seem to get increasing? A few reasons choose mind. One, on average we live longer. Conditions used to result in death tend to be more treatable, extending our lifetimes. With increased longevity may appear chronic pain related to people conditions or simply to the maturing process. Cause for the rise in our pain will be the increase in obesity as United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), as of 2009 only two states had an obesity rate of when compared with 20%: the District of Columbia and Colorado (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2009). The CDC reports that obesity may lead to diseases that may include chronic challenges.+===== Description =====
  
-Like the candidates for the presidential campaign go from city to city teaching and preaching what Osteopathic clinic they will do whenever they get electedJesus went from city to city teaching and preaching the gospel belonging to the KingdomProgram showed them what the dominion would do by healing every sicknessand every disease on the list of people.+The KISS principle is about striving for simplicity. Modern programming languagesframeworks and APIs have powerful means to create sophisticated solutions for various kinds of problemsSometimes developers might feel tempted to write "clever" solutions that use all these complex features. The KISS principle states that a solution is better when it uses less inheritanceless polymorphism, fewer classes, etc.
  
-After niche passes, may happen a person shows up to and including doctor or hospital not insured? Today they are usually usedWill they be fined? Will they be denied care until contacting federal government? Will it be the responsibility of the 新潟市中央区 整骨院 provider to report them for the government or get them signed up?+A solution that follows the KISS principle might look boring or even "stupid" but simple and understandable. The KISS principle states that there is no value in a solution being "clever" but being easily understandable.
  
-You should pay careful attention to your cat for changes inside the behaviorIf you happen to see any major modifications in how he actshe should be taken to a veterinarian promptlyCats usually only show subtle symptoms after getting not feeling wellso you have to pay attention to any adjustments in their normal behaviorGetting your healthcare for cats seriouslyyou have precious kitty that lives for hundreds of years.+This does not mean that features like inheritance and polymorphism should not be used at all. Rather they should only be used when they are necessary or there is some substantial advantage. 
 + 
 +===== Rationale ===== 
 + 
 +A simpler solution is better than a complex one because simple solutions are easier to maintain. This includes increased readability, understandability, and changeability. Furthermore, writing simple code is less error-prone. 
 + 
 +The advantage of simplicity is even more significant when the person who maintains the software is not the one who once wrote it. The maintainer might also be less familiar with sophisticated programming language features. So simple and stupid programs are easier to maintain because the maintainer needs less time to understand them and is less likely to introduce further defects. 
 + 
 +One reason to create more complex code is to make it more flexible to accommodate further requirements. But one cannot know how to make it flexible or if that flexibility will be ever needed. 
 + 
 +"When you make your code more flexible or sophisticated than it needs to be, you over-engineer it. Some do this because they believe they know their system's future requirements. The reason that it's best to make a design more flexible or sophisticated today is to accommodate the needs of tomorrowThat sounds reasonable, if you happen to be a psychic." - Refactoring To Patterns - Joshua Kerievsky. 
 + 
 +Another reason to create more complex code is to make optimizations. An optimized code is a more complex code. Pareto principle applies also in code: a program spends most of the time in a small portion of the codeso it will be wise to concentrate the effort to optimize only that part of the code. Another best practice is to follow the  
 +"Three rules of optimization": (1. Don't, 2. Don't... Yet, 3. Profile before optimizing), which make sense: to optimize only the code with performance problems. (First author: Michael A. Jackson) 
 + 
 + 
 +===== Strategies ===== 
 + 
 +This is a very general principle, so there is a large variety of possible strategies to adhere more to this principle largely depending on the given design problem: 
 + 
 +  * Avoid inheritance, polymorphism, dynamic binding and other complicated OOP concepts. Use delegation and simple if-constructs instead. 
 +  * Avoid low-level optimization of algorithms, especially when involving Assembler, bit-operations, and pointers. Slower implementations will work just fine. 
 +  * Use simple brute-force solutions instead of complicated algorithms. Slower algorithms will work in the first place. 
 +  * Avoid numerous classes and methods as well as large code blocks (see [[More Is More Complex]]) 
 +  * For slightly unrelated but rather small pieces of functionality use private methods instead of an additional class. 
 +  * Avoid general solutions needing parameterization. A specific solution will suffice. 
 +  * ... 
 + 
 + 
 +===== Caveats ===== 
 + 
 +See section [[#contrary principles]]. 
 + 
 + 
 +===== Origin ===== 
 + 
 +The principle was coined by the American engineer Kelly Johnson referring to the requirement that a military aircraft should be repairable with a limited set of tools under combat conditions ((Ben R. Rich: //[[http://www.nap.edu/html/biomems/cjohnson.pdf|Clarence Leonard (Kelly) Johnson 1910—1990: A Biographical Memoir]]//)). 
 + 
 +The principle of striving for simple solutions sometimes is also called "(rule of) simplicity"((Eric S. Raymond: //[[http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/ch01s06.html#id2877917|The Art of Unix Programming]]//)) which was also prominently stated by Tony Hoare in his Turing Award lecture: "I conclude that there are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult."((Tony Hoare: //[[http://awards.acm.org/images/awards/140/articles/4622167.pdf|The Emperor’s Old Clothes / The 1980 ACM Turing Award Lecture]]//)) 
 + 
 + 
 +===== Evidence ===== 
 +/* Comment out what is not applicable and explain the rest: */ 
 +/*  * [[wiki:Proposed]]*/ 
 +/*  * [[wiki:Questioned]]*/ 
 + 
 + 
 +[[wiki:Accepted]]: This principle is widely known and accepted in practice. See for example Jargon File: //[[http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/K/KISS-Principle.html|KISS Principle]]// 
 + 
 +[[wiki:Examined]]: While the preference for simple solutions can be considered trivially intuitive, there has been some work relating simplicity or rather complexity and certain quality attributes. But as there is no universally applicable complexity metric and not even commonly agreed upon clear definition of simplicity, research is bound to examine certain aspects of KISS independently 
 + 
 +The following hypotheses can be stated: 
 +  - Simpler solutions are faster to implement. 
 +  - Simpler solutions yield fewer implementation faults (which reduces testing effort). 
 +  - Simpler solutions are easier to maintain, i.e. detecting and correcting defects is more effective and efficient. 
 +  - Simpler solutions yield more reliable software, i.e. fewer defects show up after releasing the software. 
 + 
 +All these hypotheses can be examined with respect to different complexity metrics. 
 + 
 +Hypothesis 1 is true by definition. If the solution cannot be implemented quickly, it is not simple.  
 + 
 +Though hypotheses 2 and 3 are not true by definition but they can be regarded intuitively clear. Neverthelessthere is some research. In ((Virginia R. Gibson and James A. Senn: //[[http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=62073|System Structure and Software Maintenance Performance]]//)) a system was improved in two steps resulting in three variants of the same system. Several metrics show that the improvements reduced complexity. 36 programmers with varying experience conducted three different maintenance tasks and their performance was measured. The results indicate that the improvements also improved maintainability. Several other studies support the correlation between complexity and maintainability((Chris F. Kemerer: //[[http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF02249043?LI=true|Software complexity and software maintenance: A survey of empirical research]]//)). 
 + 
 +Furthermore, software cost estimation techniques are partly based on complexity judgments((Barry W. Boehm: //Software Engineering Economics//, IEEE)). So complexity---although this normally relates the complexity of the problem and not to the complexity of the solution---is a known cost factor which may be accounted to maintenance. 
 + 
 +Lastly, hypothesis 4 is likely to be false. Several studies relating complexity metrics and post-release reliability show that module size in lines of code predicts reliability at least as good as the McCabe metric (also called cyclomatic complexity) ((see Albert Endres, Dieter Rombach: //A Handbook of Software and Systems Engineering//, p168ff.)). Assuming cyclomatic complexity correctly depicts the complexity of a module, reliability should not the reason for applying KISS. 
 + 
 + 
 +===== Relations to Other Principles ===== 
 + 
 +==== Generalizations ==== 
 + 
 +==== Specializations ==== 
 + 
 +  * [[More Is More Complex]] (MIMC): KISS states that one should strive for simplicity. MIMC makes this more concrete stating that more of anything (methodsclasses, lines of code, ...) increases complexity. 
 +  * [[You Ain't Gonna Need It]] (YAGNI) 
 +  * [[Rule of Parsimony]] 
 +  * [[Rule of Robustness]] 
 + 
 +==== Contrary Principles ==== 
 + 
 +Note that many principles are contrary to KISS. This means that it is worthwhile to consider KISS when considering one of those. Nevertheless this does not mean that this is true the other way around. When considering KISS, one wouldn't want to consider all principles that have complexity as a disadvantage. So here are those needing consideration: 
 + 
 +  * **[[Generalization Principle]] (GP)**: This is the directly converse principle. A generally applicable solution typically is not simple anymore. 
 +  * **[[Murphy's Law]] (ML)**: The ultimate reason behind KISS is to increase maintainability and reduce the introduction of defects. But following KISS blindly by always using the simplest solution may also lead to //reduced// maintainability when Murphy's Law is not considered. 
 +  * [[Model Principle]] (MP): There are often simpler ways to build a software system than to model and mirror the real-world behavior, which frequently means having more objects and more complicated structures. Nevertheless, it is advisable to do so anyway. 
 + 
 +==== Complementary Principles ==== 
 + 
 +==== Principle Collections ==== 
 + 
 +{{page>collections:OOD Principle Language#Box}} 
 +{{page>collections:Unix Philosophy (Eric S. Raymond)#Box}} 
 + 
 + 
 +===== Examples ===== 
 + 
 +==== Example 1: Fuzzy Simplicity ==== 
 + 
 +Simplicity is a blurry, partly subjective measure. Sometimes it is difficult to tell what is simpler. The following example shows that
 + 
 +<code java> 
 +public String weekday1(int dayOfWeek) 
 +
 +    switch (dayOfWeek) 
 +    { 
 +        case 1: return "Monday"; 
 +        case 2: return "Tuesday"; 
 +        case 3: return "Wednesday"; 
 +        case 4: return "Thursday"; 
 +        case 5: return "Friday"; 
 +        case 6: return "Saturday"; 
 +        case 7: return "Sunday"; 
 +        default: throw new IllegalArgumentException("dayOfWeek must be in range 1..7"); 
 +    } 
 +
 + 
 +public String weekday2(int dayOfWeek) 
 +
 +    if ((dayOfWeek < 1) || (dayOfWeek > 7)) 
 +        throw new IllegalArgumentException("dayOfWeek must be in range 1..7"); 
 + 
 +    final String[] weekdays = { 
 +        "Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday", "Thursday", "Friday", "Saturday", "Sunday"}; 
 + 
 +    return weekdays[dayOfWeek-1]; 
 +
 +</code> 
 + 
 +Both methods do exactly the same thing. They return a string representing the weekday. Just the implementation is different. Both versions may be seen as simpler than the other depending on the view taken. ''weekday2'' has less statements and less execution branches. Complexity metrics measuring these aspects (e.g. the [[glossary:cyclomatic complexity]]) will therefore prefer ''weekday2''
 + 
 +On the other hand ''weekdays1'' uses less language features (just switch, return, and exceptions whereas ''weekdays2'' needs if, arrays, arithmetic, return, and exceptions). Furthermore in ''weekdays1'' the relation between input and output can be seen directly and it's clear how it works by just seeing the method. But for understanding ''weekday2'' there are more details to think about. This is especially true for the range check at the beginning and the index computation in the ''return'' statement. Clearly this is not particularly difficult but these are aspects which are more difficult than in the other version of the method. 
 + 
 +So it's not objectively clear which of the two implementations KISS prefers without saying which complexity metric to apply. But this ambiguity is not a problem since principles are not meant to be unambiguous and objective. Eventually a human developer has to decide which solution to implement and the principles only give guidelines. 
 +===== Description Status ===== 
 +/* Choose one of the following and comment out the rest: */ 
 +/*[[wiki:Stub]]*/ 
 +[[wiki:Incomplete]] 
 +/*[[wiki:Complete]]*/ 
 + 
 +===== Further Reading ===== 
 + 
 +  * [[wiki>KeepItSimple]] 
 +  * [[wp>KISS principle]] 
 +  * [[http://people.apache.org/~fhanik/kiss.html|Apache: KISS]] 
 +  * [[http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/ch01s06.html#id2877917|The Art of Unix Programming: Rule of Simplicity]] 
 + 
 +===== Discussion ===== 
 + 
 +Discuss this wiki article and the principle on the corresponding [[talk:principles:Keep It Simple Stupid|talk page]].
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