# Simplicity (AI Connections) ## Metadata **Status**:: #x **Zettel**:: #zettel/fleeting **Created**:: [[2025-12-14]] **Source**:: #from/cursor **Kind**:: #ai-gardening **Topic**:: [[♯ Simplicity]] ## Books ### Code Simplicity - **Author**: Max Kanat-Alexander - **File**: [[Max Kanat-Alexander - Code Simplicity (Highlights)]] - **Key Quote**: "The purpose of software is to help people." - **Highlights**: - Writing code that isn't needed - Not making the code easy to change - Being too generic - Never "fix" anything unless it's a problem, and you have evidence showing that the problem really exists ### On Writing Well (by William Zinsser) - **Author**: Shortform (summary) - **File**: [[Shortform - On Writing Well by William Zinsser (Highlights)]] - **Key Concept**: Writing fundamentals of simplicity, clarity, and identity - **Highlights**: - Simplicity means your writing is easy to understand because it uses common and precise words as well as simple sentence structures - One precise word can do the job of three or four vague words - Test the simplicity of your writing by reading your work out loud ## Articles ### 3-2-1: How to Do Hard Things, Being Resourceful, and the Value of Simplicity - **Author**: James Clear - **File**: [[James Clear - 3-2-1 How to Do Hard Things, Being Resourceful, and the Value of Simplicity (Highlights)]] - **URL**: [readwise.io](https://readwise.io/bookreview/32202782) - **Key Themes**: Controlling attention, focusing on the fun part when doing hard things, value of simplicity ### Social Architecture - **Author**: Pieter Hintjens - **File**: [[Pieter Hintjens - Social Architecture (Highlights)]] - **URL**: [hintjens.wdfiles.com](https://hintjens.wdfiles.com/local--files/books/social-architecture.pdf) - **Key Quotes**: - "Simplicity beats functionality, every single time. If you can't understand an architecture on a cold gray Monday morning before coffee, it is too complex." - Introduces "Simplicity Oriented Design" (SOD) - a process that starts with the realization that we don't know what we have to make until after we start making it - **Highlights**: Architecture principles, community design, minimal viable solutions ### Don't write clean code, write CRISP code - **Author**: John Arundel - **File**: [[John Arundel - Don't write clean code, write CRISP code (Highlights)]] - **URL**: [bitfieldconsulting.com](https://bitfieldconsulting.com/golang/crisp-code) - **Key Concept**: CRISP = Correct, Readable, Idiomatic, **Simple**, and Performant - **Key Quote**: "Simplicity, as Alan Perlis observed, does not precede complexity, but follows it. In other words, don't try to *write* simple programs: write the program first, *then* make it simple." - **Highlights**: - Simplicity includes directness - code does what it says on the tin - Directness is inversely related to brevity: instead of one short, but complex, function, write three simple, but similar functions ### The Rise of Worse is Better - **Author**: Richard Gabriel - **File**: [[Richard Gabriel - The Rise of Worse is Better (Highlights)]] - **URL**: [www.jwz.org](https://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html) - **Key Quote**: "Simplicity - the design must be simple, both in implementation and interface. It is more important for the implementation to be simple than the interface. Simplicity is the most important consideration in a design." - **Highlights**: Philosophy of design simplicity over perfection ### Minimalism — The Most Undervalued Development Skill - **Author**: Tero Piirainen - **File**: [[Tero Piirainen - Minimalism — The Most Undervalued Development Skill (Highlights)]] - **URL**: [volument.com](https://volument.com/blog/minimalism-the-most-undervalued-development-skill) - **Key References**: Steve Jobs, Dieter Rams on product design; Salvatore Sanfilippo on programming ### Hints for Computer System Design - **Author**: Butler W. Lampson - **File**: [[Butler W. Lampson - Hints for Computer System Design (Highlights)]] - **URL**: [microsoft.com](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/acrobat-17.pdf) - **Key Quote**: "Leave it to the client. As long as it is cheap to pass control back and forth, an interface can combine simplicity, flexibility and high performance by solving only one problem and leaving the rest to the client." - **Highlights**: - Keep it simple - Make it fast, rather than general or powerful - Use procedure arguments to provide flexibility ### The Emperor's Old Clothes - **Author**: Charles Antony Richard Hoare - **File**: [[Charles Antony Richard Hoare - The Emperor's Old Clothes (Highlights)]] - **URL**: [noncombatant.org](https://noncombatant.org/hoare-emperors-old-clothes-turing-award/hoare-emperors-old-clothes.pdf) - **Key Quotes**: - "The price of reliability is the pursuit of the utmost simplicity. It is a price which the very rich find most hard to pay." - "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." ## Articles with Passing References to Simplicity ### Software Engineering - The Soft Parts - **Author**: Addy Osmani - **File**: [[Addy Osmani - Software Engineering - The Soft Parts (Highlights)]] - **Key Quote**: "I prefer to take the middle ground between extreme abstraction and extreme simplicity by making code just a little generic." ### Prompt Engineering Guide - **Author**: Dair.ai Authors - **File**: [[Dair.ai Authors - Prompt Engineering Guide - 1.4 General Tips for Designing Prompts (Highlights)]] - **Key Quote**: "As you read the guide, you will see many examples where specificity, simplicity, and conciseness will often give you better results." ### The Revised Psychology of Human Misjudgment - **Author**: Charlie Munger et al. - **File**: [[Charlie Munger et al. - The Revised Psychology of Human Misjudgment (Highlights)]] - **Key Quote**: "It seems obvious, to me at least, that the human brain must often operate counterproductively just like the ant's, from unavoidable oversimplicity in its mental process..." ### Raft: In Search of an Understandable Consensus Algorithm - **Author**: Diego Ongaro et al. - **File**: [[Diego Ongaro et al. - Raft In Search of an Understandable Consensus Algorithm (Highlights)]] - **Key Quote**: "There are some situations where a leader could safely conclude that an older log entry is committed (for example, if that entry is stored on every server), but Raft takes a more conservative approach for simplicity." ### The Legacy of Peer-to-Peer Systems - **Author**: Carlos Baquero - **File**: [[Carlos Baquero - The Legacy of Peer-to-Peer Systems (Highlights)]] - **Key Quote**: "A subsequent algorithm, Kademlia, added simplicity and robustness to content addressable networks." ### Gödel, Escher, Bach - **Author**: Douglas Hofstadter - **File**: [[Douglas Hofstadter - Gödel, Escher, Bach (Highlights)]] - **Key Quote**: "In short, in using chunked high-level models, we sacrifice determinism for simplicity." ## Summary This collection spans multiple domains: - **Software Development**: Code simplicity, system design, architecture - **Writing**: Clarity and simplicity in communication - **Design Philosophy**: Simplicity as a core principle - **Psychology**: Mental models and cognitive simplicity The recurring theme is that simplicity is not about reducing functionality, but about achieving clarity, maintainability, and reliability through thoughtful design and implementation choices.