Increasing Complexity Over Time

In Dianetics, L. Ron Hubbard mentions:

Only things which are poorly known become more complex the longer one works upon them.

Have you ever seen that happen with a software project? It just becomes more complex, and more complex, and more complex, and eventually it’s just a huge mass of complexity that nobody can maintain anymore?

I think it might be interesting to think about that in the context of the above quote. Perhaps there’s actually something more that could be known about the system. Maybe your users don’t actually need or want all those features. Maybe there’s more research that could be done on different areas of the system. Anything, really–just know more about it. Maybe there’s even some fundamental missing data about life or programming that’s hampering the project.

Whatever it is, I think it’s pretty interesting to think that knowledge could defeat complexity!

-Max