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As a blog post with the title "Don't be clever" ending up with the author's answer being an even clever-er solution, than talking about the hidden fight against

As a blog post with the title "Don't be clever" ending up with the author's answer being an even clever-er solution, than talking about the hidden fight against complexity in software, was an odd ending note.

cogman10 3y ago
"Don't be clever, now let me tell you about the non-clever solution of writing a bespoke meta programming language to solve the problem of copy/paste"
- dietr1ch 3y ago
  And with this inconsistency the author really pushed you into rejecting complexity. Maybe by looking like a fool he fooled us all?
  - appplication 3y ago
    I think it’s just a great metaphor, and an experience I seem to relive over and over. Every time I think I have something figured out, hindsight always shows me I didn’t. This probably leads to me living in a state of perpetual overconfidence. Because even if I don’t fully know what I’m doing, look at past me! That dude had no clue what he didn’t know!
chomp 3y ago
It's not a clever-er solution? As an example, `php artisan make:controller` and potentially some custom derivatives is going to solve like 95% of what he was trying to abstract.
- HappySweeney 3y ago
  Until something goes wrong, and you didn't write it. At that point, have fun.
lopatin 3y ago
To me the most ironic part was calling CRUDController clever in the first place. There could have been clever solutions to reduce the code repetition, but using inheritance to force a naive abstraction on every future programmer isn't it.
dehrmann 3y ago
I didn't find either all that clever. It was premature abstraction, followed by abstraction-lite.
isaacremuant 3y ago
I don't know if it's because I'm reading HN more often these days instead of spacing it out but there's definitely a sizeable quantity of "<hard statement title>" followed by "so short it seems from twitter" article which really provides little insight or is absolutely misguided. I guess the debate is instructional in itself and it's why the comments+article combo is the real power of HN.

cogman10 3y ago

"Don't be clever, now let me tell you about the non-clever solution of writing a bespoke meta programming language to solve the problem of copy/paste"

dietr1ch 3y ago
And with this inconsistency the author really pushed you into rejecting complexity. Maybe by looking like a fool he fooled us all?
- appplication 3y ago
  I think it’s just a great metaphor, and an experience I seem to relive over and over. Every time I think I have something figured out, hindsight always shows me I didn’t. This probably leads to me living in a state of perpetual overconfidence. Because even if I don’t fully know what I’m doing, look at past me! That dude had no clue what he didn’t know!

chomp 3y ago

It's not a clever-er solution? As an example, `php artisan make:controller` and potentially some custom derivatives is going to solve like 95% of what he was trying to abstract.

HappySweeney 3y ago
Until something goes wrong, and you didn't write it. At that point, have fun.

lopatin 3y ago

To me the most ironic part was calling CRUDController clever in the first place. There could have been clever solutions to reduce the code repetition, but using inheritance to force a naive abstraction on every future programmer isn't it.

dehrmann 3y ago

I didn't find either all that clever. It was premature abstraction, followed by abstraction-lite.

isaacremuant 3y ago

I don't know if it's because I'm reading HN more often these days instead of spacing it out but there's definitely a sizeable quantity of "<hard statement title>" followed by "so short it seems from twitter" article which really provides little insight or is absolutely misguided. I guess the debate is instructional in itself and it's why the comments+article combo is the real power of HN.