Re: Simplicity vs. Doing It Right

[adrianh]

This thread reminds me of some of the arguments about the implications of DoTheSimplestThingThatCouldPossiblyWork in XP (that's Extreme Programming this time... XP must win the award for most overused abbreviation...).

I tend to think that:

we'd better plan for the future by building solider solutions than are asked for

is really a separate issue from

leveraging tested, off-the-shelf code where possible to save effort.

The latter is nearly always a good thing as far as I am concerned.

The former can get you into trouble.

You waste time building a complex solid solution that you then have to throw away when the requirements change.

If you'd built a small problem-specific solution you would still have had to throw it away - but have wasted less time in producing it. Since the small solution would have taken less implementation time it would also have helped identify the fact that the requirements needed changing sooner - a good thing.

The only time this falls down is if your in a development environment that doesn't give you the freedom to go back and refactor that problem-specific solution into something more generic if/when it becomes necessary.