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--- principles:keep_it_simple_stupid [2025-11-18 07:37] – created veronicamcnally
+++ principles:keep_it_simple_stupid [2025-11-25 10:53] (current) – old revision restored (2021-10-20 21:09) christian
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-As the healthcare reporting system runs using a normal PC, installation and maintenance costs could well be kept low. You won't need dedicated support staff on hand to draw you through every little point. You'll just be able to get on with serving the requirements of your folks.
+====== Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS) ======
-Lack of Vitamin Ve had. This essential vitamin has one primary natural source-the sun's heat. But in some climates this is a problem. And too much sun can lead Acupuncture clinic to skin cancer. Supplements are the best replacement.
+===== Variations and Alternative Names =====
-Usually, after the four-year course, you would definitely be required to plod through a year more of practical training where you'd be allowed to see and help out in an Osteopathic clinic or hospital. Should you wish to take a good even more specialized osteopathic field, then you will be looking at two to three more numerous training and studying.
+  * (Rule of) Simplicity
+  * KISS may also mean "Keep it short and simple", "keep it simple and straightforward", "keep it smart and simple", etc. A large amount of variations exists.
-Here is really the most controversial a part of my plan: We must limit the amount courts can award for malpractice agrees with. Medical malpractice insurance premiums and potential/actual legal price two of the largest expenditures in [[https://Www.kenpoguy.com/phasickombatives/profile.php?id=2990139|新潟市中央区 肩こり]]. The doctors and hospitals spend millions and billions of dollars worrying about being and getting sued. To be a result, may well forced to these costs on to us as well as the insurers.
+**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.
-The lawyers may become the biggest victors. This bill is a dream come true for all ambulance chasers. There work just like limits indicates. The millions they get for malpractice suits will keep their butts in plush offices and fancy cars forever. I've got a doctor friend that pays over $100,000 a year in malpractice insurance on your own. Keep that in mind next time you complain about your physician bill.
-Another form of Spondylosis is cervical spondylosis that affects the back badly. Lumbar Spondylosis symptoms generally happens to those individuals who are previously work excessively on the computer, drive vehicle, farmers who work tirelessly in light and mostly in that old age buyers. If the patient uses the painkillers for long time, it might have a poor effect about the stomach and kidneys. However, in many cases, the Lumbar Spondylosis does not show any symptoms; just he feels backache a start. He should consult the doctor and get the x-ray report and CT scan of his anchor.
+===== Context =====
-Since employers do lose some tax advantages in this proposal, I would recommend we permit them to convert those tax advantages a good increase with your pay-scale. Both of these suggested changes would create additional jobs greater salaries.
+  * [[contexts:Object-Oriented Design]]
+  * [[contexts:Architecture]]
+  * [[contexts:User Interface Design]]
+  * [[contexts:Implementation]]
-Lumbar Spondylosis is a kind of spondylosis disease. Around the globe a medical term used for the degenerative joint disease relating for the part of the back in between ribs and the hipbones impuissance. Symptoms of lumbar spondylosis are severe pain inside of neck, arms, shoulders and limbs, powerlessness of muscles and abnormal skin sensations called Paresthesia.
+===== Principle Statement =====
-As application runs on desktop pcs, the healthcare reporting product is easy vehicle insurance and use, and is like familiar computer software. This encourages consumers to use it, and same goes with be inexpensive Acupuncture clinic .
+A simple solution is better than a complex one, even if the solution looks stupid.
-Unknown in my experience at the time and not for within month after my injury had occurred , I learned that Canadian , I'll call him Bill, being employed by the same company as myself, had suffered replacing injury of the same time as mine 新潟市中央区 肩こり . When I asked about him and what he was doing about it, his supervisor explained that he was on a waiting list for an MRI tryout. He told me that this wasn't scheduled until mid-January 2009. Help to make a long story short, the essence of this story is: by the time Bill had his MRI test, I seen my regular doctor, been to be able to specialist (an orthopedic), had an MRI test, to be able to the specialist and going on and was about half way or more through my physical therapy sessions in the doctor's dept.
-On the whole, make use of a few details to iron out before we embark on any of my proposed changes, although i challenge for you to definitely give it some felt. It makes sense and it works within our current country's economy without creating a major upheaval in our daily experiences. It puts more money in our pockets and keeps the government out of those. (Like most struggling people, I am all in support of both).
+===== Description =====
-What could be the normal co-pay for acupuncture if I prefer a preferred provider? This is actually the amount would certainly think pay out-of-pocket for each visit along with practitioner who is not on their "in network" list, but who is on their "preferred provider" list.
+The KISS principle is about striving for simplicity. Modern programming languages, frameworks and APIs have powerful means to create sophisticated solutions for various kinds of problems. Sometimes 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 inheritance, less polymorphism, fewer classes, etc.
-When one looks at total revenues for the United States, the biggest revenue great for Personal Taxes. If well-built to resolve a fiscal crisis how of make certain the U . s citizens currently finds itself in, you to help look at the biggest sources to make adjustments. Corporate Income taxes are so small related to be found irrelevant in this discussion. As a matter of fact I'd encourage that Corporate Duty be abolished in the United States, if in support of if the proposal for funding 新潟市中央区 肩こり in how to handle it is followed. Otherwise, I be convinced that a Corporate Income Tax of about 8.55% that cannot be reduced any kind of way must be implemented.
+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.
+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 tomorrow. That 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 code, so 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 a 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. Nevertheless, there 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//, p. 168ff.)). 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 (methods, classes, 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]].