Complexity: Let's Not Make This Complicated

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Hindle, Abram

• Examines the concept of "keeping it simple" with respect to software engineering. It’s funny how keeping it simple in software development can often mean revising and refactoring an existing system until it is elegant enough to afford adaptation and change. Simplicity and elegance are the goals of many developers when they’re designing software. Developers often view complexity as the opposite of simplicity, but I argue that complexity is not the right word. I think complicated software is really what people are worried about. In other fields, such as physics or even education,3 complexity refers to how agents, individuals, and entities interact with one another via a small set of rules or processes to produce intricate and interesting behaviors, much like birds or fish flocking and swarming together in complex patterns without collisions. Analogously, developers want their code to compose a solution both clearly and elegantly, allowing for dynamism and adaptability.

• Date created

  2019

• Subjects / Keywords

  • entropy
  • code block
  • Halstead's volume
  • McCabe's cyclomatic complexity
  • software engineering
  • complicated software
  • perceived complexity
  • software engineering research
  • architectural patterns
  • architectural complexity
  • agile software

• Type of Item

  Article (Published)

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-21t7-vx11

• License

  Attribution 4.0 International