Don't Be A Tom Sawyer Developer

From the title of this post, you might think I am referring to the famous whitewashing incident in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. While that story certainly could apply to a developer, I am referring to the end of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

For those who aren't familiar with the story, I am referring to Tom and Huck's plan to break runaway slave Jim out of captivity. All things considered, a very simple and easy plan could have been executed to get Jim out. Instead, the plan becomes needlessly complicated, involves an amazing amount of additional work, and almost results in getting Tom killed.

Why did they go to so much trouble when a simpler plan would have worked? Because Tom felt the simple way wasn't an honorable way to spring a prisoner. According to his understanding of the process from reading books such as The Man in the Iron Mask and other classics, a breakout had to be complicated and harrowing. Thus instead of a one night job, it became a mess full of "pet" spiders and snakes, cobbled together shovels and knifes, and a rope ladder baked into a pie.

As a developer, I must admit that far too often I've fallen into the trap of "complicated = better". Like other people, overcoming complicated situations make me feel good, even if some of those complications could have been avoided. Sometimes these complications come about because of a desire to do it right, to follow what a book or what conventional wisdom says is the right way. Often times this takes longer than a simpler, if inelegant, solution was taken, and is rarely ever better than the simple solution.

The ideal application gets from point A to point B in a straight line. While this may be an unrealistic level of simplicity to always reach, it is certainly a wise goal. It is the driving principle behind CompassBill, and the cornerstone tenet of CompassWare. So with all due respect to Mr. Sawyer, we feel the simple way is plenty honorable.