I love when programming handbooks start with quotes like this:

"Creativity is more than just being different...
Anybody can play weird — that's easy.
What's hard is to be as simple as Bach.
Making the simple complicated is commonplace...
Making the complicated simple
— awesomely simple;
That"s creativity."

— Charles Mingus, jazz musician (1922-1979)

(Source: The MacFORTH handbook, 1984 — https://bitsavers.org/pdf/creativeSolutions/MacFORTH_1.2_Oct84.pdf)

Micro-Scrum, by @j9t [@frontenddogma.com]:

https://meiert.com/en/blog/micro-scrum/

The original #LISP had 7 primitives: \(\texttt{cons}\), \(\texttt{car,}\) \(\texttt{cdr}\), \(\texttt{atom}\), \(\texttt{quote}\), \(\texttt{eq}\), and \(\texttt{cond}\). And the original #Smalltalk syntax could fit on a 5×7 card. That meant a novice could learn the syntax in a matter of minutes, and direct all his efforts to learning how properly to wield the power of that Turing-complete language. This was why, in the 1970s and the 1980s, many college freshmen were taught FP in Scheme (a more modern LISP) and many middle school children were taught OO in Smalltalk. These were surely the best "first" #programming languages.

#FORTRAN and #BASIC were simple, too. FORTRAN, the first high-level language, has been in continuous use since the late 1950s by engineers, who are not keyboard warriors. BASIC was invented in the early 1960s for teaching programming to non-STEM students at Dartmouth. It sired a whole generation of self-taught children in the 1980s.

Compare those to C++, Erlang, Python, Haskell, Java, JavaScript, Scala, Rust, Kotlin, and pretty much every language in popular use today. Most consider Python and JavaScript to be the simplest of modern languages. Yet, they are massive, complex languages. No 10-year-old could teach himself those, nor should he.

The original versions of those classic languages cannot be used to solve modern problems. But they should still be taught to youngsters as their first language. Throwing in the kids' faces a modern enterprise language confuses them and discourages them. Consequently, many novices never attain that state of flow, when the joy of programming gushes forth.

#Simplicity is a virtue. Self-motivated learning is virtuous.

"#happiness doesn’t have to come from cramming every moment full of activities or chasing bigger and better"

5 Life Lessons From #Finland, Once Again The ‘World’s Happiest Country’ https://buff.ly/pEUyPdG

#Design #Challenges
Simplification takes courage · “Simplicity isn’t the absence of complexity, but rather complexity resolved.” https://ilo.im/162y5c

_____
#Decisions #Clarity #Simplicity #Complexity #ProductDesign #UxDesign #UiDesign #WebDesign

I like all #programming languages. I like even more those languages that an experienced #programmer could learn in a few hours, like #Elm, #TypeScript, #Gleam, and a few other similar ones.

I am not claiming that these languages will make all jaded programmers happy, for each has its own set of pluses and minuses. I am simply pointing out that "unquantifiable something" in their design that makes these languages easier to take up.

That "something" could well be #simplicity. The designers of these little languages seem to be more concerned with making the language users' lives easier through simplicity, instead of with impressing other language designers through complexity. This is also the same philosophy behind FORTRAN, LISP, C, and Smalltalk. And I would add ML, MATLAB, and Go to this list, too.

Great Software Design Looks Underwhelming, by @sjgoedecke@x.com:

https://www.seangoedecke.com/great-software-design/

#StandingStoneSunday

#SimpleSaturday or #SilhouetteSatuday ?

Continuing my theme of hashtags that nobody has ever heard of

#Simplicity beats #complexity ...

In the light of #evolution, everything suddenly #makes #sense

In the interplay of #modeling, #feeling and the #evolutionary principles we decode the #secrets of #knowledge and #understanding. In doing so, we come across #consciousness, #mind and #intelligence.

Ready to rediscover evolution?
https://modfeelblog.wordpress.com

This is one reason why I ignore mission statements when I make decisions.

#Simplicity

#Simplicity beats #complexity ...
In the light of #evolution, everything suddenly #makes #sense

In the interplay of #modeling, #feeling and the #evolutionary principles we decode the #secrets of #knowledge and #understanding. In doing so, we come across #consciousness, #mind and #intelligence.

Ready to rediscover evolution?
https://modfeelblog.wordpress.com

Die Geschichte der #DIY - #Fashion

„A STITCH IN TIME“

#pattern #Schnittmuster #nähen #sewing #stiching #handmade #burda #butterrick #Vogue #mccalls #Simplicity

https://simplicity.com/stitch-in-time

calendar.txt: Simple, functional, and inspiring. Sometimes everything is really that simple.

https://terokarvinen.com/2021/calendar-txt/

A quotation from Nicholas Taleb

We humans, facing limits of knowledge, and things we do not observe, the unseen and the unknown, resolve the tension by squeezing life and the world into crisp commoditized ideas, reductive categories, specific vocabularies, and prepackaged narratives, which, on the occasion, has explosive consequences.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (b. 1960) Lebanese-American essayist, statistician, risk analyst, aphorist.
The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms, Introduction (2010)

Sourcing, notes: wist.info/taleb-nassim-nichola…