Sometimes I will write some software that is the realization of a very simple idea. I will spend perhaps a few days on it, polish it up, and be very happy with it.<\/p>\n
What I have is something that tries to do only one thing. But it does that one thing very well. There is a kind of poetry to it.<\/p>\n
But then I will be tempted to get ambitious. “As long as I’m doing this thing well,” I say to myself, “why not add that other capability?”<\/p>\n
Soon I am adding capabilities right and left, and my once simple little software gem starts to turn into Dr. Frankenstein’s creature. It does all sorts of things, but it no longer has a clear purpose. The poetry of it is gone.<\/p>\n
I’ve been getting better at resisting the temptation to keep building things to the point where I kill the poetry. I think it’s a skill you develop over time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sometimes I will write some software that is the realization of a very simple idea. I will spend perhaps a few days on it, polish it up, and be very happy with it. What I have is something that tries to do only one thing. But it does that one thing very well. There is … Continue reading “A kind of poetry”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23746"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23746"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23747,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23746\/revisions\/23747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}