“The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination. Few media of creation are so flexible, so easy to polish and rework, so readily capable of realizing grand conceptual structures… Yet the program construct, unlike the poet’s…

The best designed systems are made easy for the people who think in concrete, in the here-and-now to understand. Software system? Make things happen on-screen, not behind the scenes. Management system? Show people clearly the if-this-than-that rule.  Customer facing system? Instant response, instant gratification. Vendor-facing system? Immediate pay. Government system? Show voters that it makes a…

Dishonest complexity happens when you make things more complex to protect your job. IT technicians can do this and get away with it. Accountants can too. Lone programmers often do this as well. Its easy for doctors, pharmacists, dentists and other highly-educated workers to make this happen. Making something more complex than it needs to…