incomprehension
should cause suspicion rather
than admiration
I was reading an article titled, Why Bloat Is Still Software’s Biggest Vulnerability A 2024 plea for lean software, by Bert Hubert on the The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers Website (2/8/2024).
Mr. Hubert was commenting how today’s software is so full of ‘bloat’ due to the quick and easy way to make webpages and computer software by focusing on making the software work and not caring how it managed to work, whether it called in software outside your program or not.
Mr. Hubert wrote that this outside software and this desire to make things work and not care how if worked used an unbelievable amount of code as well as created an unbelievable amount of security risks.
Mr. Hubert quoted a paper from 1995 (!) where a Mr. Niklaus Wirth said, “To some, complexity equals power. Increasingly, people seem to misinterpret complexity as sophistication, which is baffling — the incomprehensible should cause suspicion rather than admiration.”
I started making webpages back in 1995.
I can still type out code as fast as I can think it when I have to, but that isn’t so much in demand anymore due to web page building programs and tools that any one can use.
I decided to test the hypothesis that these tools use too much unnecessary code and I made two simple web pages.
Off the top of my head I wrote the code for a page that said, “HELLO WORLD” and uploaded it to a server.
Then, using WordPress, I made a page that said, “HELLO WORLD.”
I used 6 lines of code.
WordPress used 537 lines of code.
OVERBROAD strokes paint this picture I know.
Still …
I read the phrase out load again.
To some, complexity equals power. Increasingly, people seem to misinterpret complexity as sophistication, which is baffling — the incomprehensible should cause suspicion rather than admiration.
Admiring this grand sweep and combination of words, I thought of today’s political news cycle.
Keep that in mind and read this again.
To some, complexity equals power.
Increasingly, people seem to misinterpret complexity as sophistication, which is baffling —
The incomprehensible should cause suspicion rather than admiration.
As Mr. Twain writes in the The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg .
“There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus and upset the convictions and debauch the emotions of an audience not practised in the tricks and delusions of oratory.“
Mr. Twain’s story was published in Harper’s Magazine back in December 1899.
Increasingly, people seem to misinterpret complexity as sophistication, which is baffling —
The incomprehensible should cause suspicion rather than admiration.
Am I missing something from the news cycle today?
I don’t think so.
It is just as Frank Lloyd Wright might have said with a smile and a wave of the backhand.
“Well, There you are.“
No Haiku For You 