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--- principles:keep_it_simple_stupid [2025-11-18 12:41] – created ivanblair7
+++ principles:keep_it_simple_stupid [2025-11-25 10:53] (current) – old revision restored (2021-10-20 21:09) christian
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-So the problem with [[http://www.bidanfiller.com/en/bbs/board.php?bo_table=free&wr_id=287270|新潟市中央区 整体院]]? Patients not have the expertise and you should not wish to seize the nuances of medical diagnosis and proper care. They falsely believe that the solutions to their problems and ailments come around the high-tech MRIs and CT scans, blood work, together with other tools at our disposal as is suffering from. It could be due to exhibits like ER or House or doctors doing extensive work-ups with little contemplation on costs or relevance. Nevertheless, with increasing co-pays, patients feel that to solve their problem, forgo health related conditions visit and order an assessment.
+====== Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS) ======
-When ever I visit Henry Su in his Acupuncture clinic 'Good Health Acupuncture & Chinese Herbal Clinic' here in Wellington, I let him insert acupuncture needles into my . Henry will check my pulse and check out my tongue and thus able pinpoint how much my is actually out of balance. Traditional chinese medicine based on balance in body, and this means what ever the body parts may be missing, Chinese acupuncture and herbs will take back the account balance and permit the body to obtain back focused.
+===== Variations and Alternative Names =====
-Polls reveal that 85% of Americans are happy with their insurance. All of these people are going in order to become losers. Will probably not be devastating, reliable a cost. Premiums will go up, services will go down, lines will be longer, visits to the doctor will be shorter, all of us will more resemble countries with socialized medicine. If everyone can can get to medical care, maybe it is actually going to worth which. Time will suggest to.
+  * (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.
-With all of the hoopla over-the-counter healthcare debate in the united states I thought it time I share my experience that was up close and tailored. In the summer of 2008 I came to be enjoying a little relaxation with friends at our cottage on french River, just south of Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. Now as I share this let me make it clear, we've been going to Canada for five decades and personally I love the place and the folks. The healthcare on the other hand, not really much.
+**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.
-Of course, the Osteopathic clinic issue with this is pretty obvious. With a discount healthcare plan, need to pay to get your expenses out-of-pocket. On the upside, if do pay, the bill will be extremely substandard. Some people receive discounts of 50 percent or more with these types of plans. If you go into the doctor as soon as a year, this isn't a bad deal. An outing that costs $200 may discounted to $100, for the way generous focuses on the theory was. True, you wouldn't have insurance, nevertheless, you were still able to save $100. If you had nothing available, you wouldn't experience any savings if you would be required to pay the full amount.
-Experience depends. Although you do not need to act as a doctor nurse just to be a healthcare consultant, end up being help if you have just a brief background about their day-to-day opportunity. I recommend you actually apply like a volunteer in your local hospital for the equivalent of 3-6 various. The knowledge that you'll obtain can be crucial when you finally start your work in healthcare consulting.
+===== Context =====
-If leaping to be fair it is still a 3% increase for all, but the proportion of salary is drastically particular. The numbers demonstrate to that the flat percentage increase on the board enhances the difference amongst the percentage of income the median household pays and a few things i pay. Therefore, the flat tax application does increase the risk for higher income earner shoulder more with the burden.
+  * [[contexts:Object-Oriented Design]]
+  * [[contexts:Architecture]]
+  * [[contexts:User Interface Design]]
+  * [[contexts:Implementation]]
-Fourth, strengthen your rep and grow to be the expert. If all you're doing is trying to sell people on coming straight into your acupuncture clinic then that's all are generally. a salesman (or woman). In your write articles that get published on these article directories then you might be automatically labeled an expert and can set yourself up once the go-to an associate your area. Articles make you look like an instructor. Teachers are expected to exactly what they're referencing. Sales people just need to know how to adopt your income. So set yourself up as the teacher and are able to sell more and sell easier.
+===== Principle Statement =====
-A healthcare plan intending to be passed. Obama's future depends on it. It is going to be the final of his second term before knowing if dust and grime or not considered. The promise of insurance for the 31 million people currently uninsured, won't be fulfilled for various. What if strategy does not work?
+A simple solution is better than a complex one, even if the solution looks stupid.
-The point is that healthcare reform will never happen soon. It isn't going to happen cheaply. So before everyone jumps for that bandwagon, take a moment to think about where all over on foot your current coverage and lobby for a cooperation between private and government healthcare, instead of government run healthcare.
-We all choose businesses or services because of seemingly inconsequential details. Such as clean bathrooms at your favorite restaurant or becoming given bottled water while your vehicle is being serviced are small details but they help make an sketch. Some of those small details save time or money, or just make you're better. It's in particulars Osteopathic clinic that elevate one business above other.
+===== Description =====
+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.
+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]].