Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

My favorite Larry Tesler contribution is Tesler’s Law or the Law of Conservation of Complexity[1].

It answers the question “why does this have to be so complicated?”, which I have found to be useful in countless numbers of UI discussions.

“We need it to do this, that, and this other thing, but in an uncomplicated way.”

Well, it can’t be less complicated than any one of those things then.

https://medium.com/kubo/teslers-law-designing-for-inevitable...



What's the relationship with Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety?

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variety_(cybernetics)#Law_of_r...>

There's also Larry Wall's "Waterbed Theory", effectively that complexity cannot be squashed down: it will out. Though I suspect this post-dates Tesler.

<https://nick.groenen.me/people/larry-wall/>




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: