Originally published at: People have a tendency to add stuff to make something better even when subtraction makes more sense | Boing Boing
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Environment Canada just improved their weather radar map to death. You can no longer zoom in to see what the local conditions are, but it has a Big Fancy Map View!
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Graphic design rule:
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but but… commenting is a strictly additive function (“If it’s a negative enough comment can it zero out another?”)
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This rule should be applied to pizza, more crap on top doesn’t not equate to better pizza.
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Conversely adding stuff to a sandwich tends to make it better.
Oh, look, it’s lunchtime!
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The kiddos and I got bored of Jenga, so we added new configurations. It made the subtraction more difficult 
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In woodcarving, the only option is subtraction, so I got that going for me!
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I have this same discussion at work every time they tell us they’re going to add a new security tool to our systems. “Well which ones are you REMOVING? Do you REALLY want to revisit the 30 minute boot up times of the Dell D series years?”
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Stripping back while songwriting is very tough for me, but it’s a worthy pursuit when it works.
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For every feature you add in SW or FW, it provides a new surface of attack. Hackers aren’t dumb and if QA doesn’t find a security bug the hackers will. KISS is the best security ever.
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In this case, it’s about the software that loads on boot. With each new package that plugs a potential threat, the systems become more difficult to use. At one point about 9 years ago, many systems were often taking as long as a half hour to boot up (and at best, five minutes to reach fully logged on). Encryption, virus scans, and backup all competing for the same meager laptop cpu power, not including all the other stuff we deploy. They finally took the hint, but I keep watching for package creep as we keep testing new products we might deploy.
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One thing I’ve learned selling TVs- when features do get removed, there’s always someone for whom that feature was apparently the best possible feature and they’re always astonished to learn most people didn’t even notice it went away.
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There have been some questionable removals (USB A, MagSafe, etc), but this is something I really admire about Apple. That single-button mouse, tho…
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aha! but you’re adding more sawdust. 
in software, reduction happens during “refactoring” - when you go through to discover what a system actually does in practice, and pare it down to just that ( or into some component parts that can accomplish other tasks you need )
you can really tell when it’s not a regular practice of a team. everyone writing their own versions of the same thing, the code base continually getting bigger, slower, more impossible to understand
software i think without regular refactoring tends to reach a point where nobody knows how the thing works, and nobody can make changes because it’s all such a mess
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Which feeds the mushrooms, which feeds us! See, it’s all a system.
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“So you’re saying productivity is low because people are too busy attending so many meetings. Let’s schedule a meeting to discuss this.”
Said every manager, ever.
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“We are forming a committee to assess your issue. Please clear your schedule for meeting of same. Your productivity goals will remain unchanged, of course.”
I have come to the conclusion that this is a strategy to get people to shut up about stuff. And it works!
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After years of dealing with creep and bloat, I’ve gone back to using a bare bones text editor for 95% of any writing I need to do. I’ll contend that the last good version of MS Word was 5.1, and everything that came after has been shit. Once the initial writing is done, everything else can be finished for production in a different tool - for print, web, social, etc.
(Also, I’ve moved from carrying a Swiss Army knife to a single-blade, because who needs the bulk?)
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Steve Jobs infamously wanted the iPhone to have multiple buttons because he thought having only one action button (home) was stupid.
(He got his wish with gestures, circa iPhone 5)
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