Over the last year or so, I've found myself calling myself a "minimalist." For the sake of this discussion, within the scope of software development. How pleased I was to read James Robertson's notes from George Bosworth's Keynote at the Cincom User Conference in Germany. The whole "Less is More" theme just resonates with me.

One of the best feelings I get from refactoring/evolving Smalltalk code, is pulling out instance variables. Or shares. Or removing classes alltogether. Or just figuring out a one liner to replace a 3 liner. Judicious abstraction often plays a key role. A good day is when I kept the system intact, made it more scalable, maybe even added a feature, and when I was done, there was less, stuff. Obviously, one could get extreme with this, but I don't think I get too carried away (e.g. I like intention revealing selectors and temp vars).

Do others find the same rewards for making more out of less? It's funny, because it's an interesting proposition to explain to someone, especially when it's their code you've been weening of a few extra calories. It does the same thing. So why bother? I dunno. Maybe it's because over the years, I've come to realize just how true the "Less is More" adage is. And I find myself striving for it (someone is probably imagining some piece of my code they've looked at thinking "is this guy taking the hypocrite pill or something?"; I'm human, I can aspire to be more than I really am).

Of side note, is the fact that the statement is associative. More is Less. Think about it.