Tell HN: After the user, the most important thing is less code
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19194352In 2019, I'm surprised most programmers I see still completely underestimate the importance of having less code. Code is their friend and more code is the fix for most problems. I'll make a claim: after the user satisfaction, less code is the most important consideration you should have as a developer. Because less code is exponentially more customer satisfaction and money. It's simply more happiness for the developers (and the user).
When you have less code, you have less code to write, you have less code to read, you have less code to understand, you have less bugs, you have a smaller team, or, for the same budget, you have more time to do new features and bug fixes, you then have more customer satisfaction, you then have more money for even more features and bug fixes. All at the same time.
The way I see it, nothing beat that.
I would even stretch a bit: it seems to me, it makes judging programming skills very easy. Take a source, can you reduce it without impacting the user? if yes then bad coder else good coder. As simple as that.
How come this is completely disregarded? For example, does triplebyte tests applicants for their ability to do less code? It's not my recollection.. How come? I would even prefer a complete beginner that I'm sure do less code, than a senior who pisses lots.
Hopefully this will lead to an interesting discussion. I'd be interested to hear specifically people who disagree, I'd also be interested in ideas to make less code more known.