🔗 Great software design looks underwhelming

Years ago I spent a lot of time reviewing coding challenges. The challenge itself was very straightforward - building a CLI tool that hit an API and allowed the user to page through and inspect the data. We allowed any language, so I saw all kinds of approaches1. At one point I came across a challenge I thought was literally perfect. It was a single Python file (maybe thirty lines of code in total), written in a very workmanlike style: the simplest, most straightforward way to meet the challenge requirements.

When I sent it to another reviewer, suggesting that we use this as a reference point for what a 10/10 looked like, I was genuinely shocked to hear from them that they wouldn’t have passed that challenge through to an interview. According to them, it didn’t demonstrate enough understanding of sophisticated language features. It was too simple.

Years later, I’m even more convinced that I was right and that reviewer was wrong. Great software design is supposed to be too simple. I think now I can finally begin to articulate why.