Simplicity
By: Hermawih Hasan
College Experiences
A teacher in introduction of business
class 101 came into a class. He moved briskly. He jumped up
and down the floor while saying kiss me, kiss me. The
students in the class felt uneasy with what the teacher was
doing. But he kept on doing that for a couple of minutes.
Then he wrote in big letter on white board while saying,
this is the most important lesson in this class KISS. He
then wrote the translation. The author apologize for the
rudeness of the language.
Keep It Simple Stupid
I kept on forgetting that most
important lesson.
In front of the class, a teacher in one
of economic class demonstrated what is an oligopoly product.
He washed his hair with shampoo. Some of the students were
laughing but some of the students thought that he was going
too far. Aside from that controversies, he explained it in
unusual way that it is not easy to forget. I believe if he
explained that concept with long explanation, I would have
forgotten what is oligopoly.
An English for second language teacher
asked her students, what is an eternity? One of the students
said, it was very long time. Another student said, It was
very very very long time. She said, “Imagine a bird comes
every morning and stands in a big stone…..” I forgot what
the teacher said in exact words but I still could visualize
it. She read a vivid story to her students.
Everyday Experiences
I asked my son the definition of an
architecture I have explained to him more than a year ago.
He said “Putting things on the right places”. He remembers
it. Simplicity is memorable.
I helped another boy to memorize a
school task which has ninety words by creating only eight
symbols for representing a long sentence. Do not imagine the
symbols I created was complex images. On the contrary, those
were so simple such as these “+ V ”. He could memorize that
easily. Simplicity is understandable.
I explained to a lady, about sixty
years old, the definition of programming by creating an
analogy between a computer program and a TV program. This is
the thing that I regreted though since I must sit and listen
for hours listening to her story about her favorite TV
program. Simplicty, in this particular case, is “never asking
a favorite TV program to an old lady”
Books
One of the author of my books, said
about the important things in OOA.
- Finding what is the most important
- Finding what to put where is the
second most important thing.
I read that book about three or four years ago. I still
remember that well. The author would like to give the book’s name
and its author, unfortunately I am unable to locate which
book. Simplicity is unforgetable.
I read three books trying to understand
about web services. All the authors wrote about SOAP, about
the architecture, about everything that I do not want to
read. They wrote complex things that I do not really need
detail explanation at the time. Not until I heard three
letters about web services that I finally can grasp the
concept. Web services is dll ( dynamic linking library).
That three letters suit me well. Perhaps latter when I
really need to create it, I will read slowly and study a
little deeper.
Websites
I have seen many web sites from simple
to complicated ones. There are some web sites that required
us to give them so many information, just to get a file.
These people like statistics and/or market segmentation so
much.
But there are some web sites only ask
an optional email address. Surprisingly that the information
is so usefull. Because I like simplicity then this is my
choice. I am going to persuade our web master to create a
simple requirement. Simplicity is people oriented.
Philosophy
Some people wrote vision & mission
statement because everybody were doing it. It does not
really matter for them if they do not believe it. It does
not really matter that the statement is complex. They want
to have it so they look good. When I see those complex
statement, I ask to myself, do they really remember those
things? Do they really mean what they wrote?
BOCSoft philosophy has three letters
CAP, conduct, aim and product. Conduct is the most
important. Aiming is the second most important and Product
is the third most important. Some people call it vision and
mission statement, we call it philosophy. Simplicity
is energizing.
Simplicity is the state of near
perfection
I learned Einstein formula e = mc2 in
senior high school physics. I still remember that. I wonder
what the formula looked like in its original form when he
found the correlation among energy, mass and speed. I guess
that it was a little bit more complex.
I used many times the technique called
“Brain storming”. If you want to solve a problem, you write
anything in your head on paper. Do not think too much if the
things will be right for the solution. At initial stage, the
result will be complex. Then you decide to do more work by
deleting unnecessary things, adding the things that you
forgot, and moving things around, the first to the last or
the last to the middle. Depending on the complexity of the
project, you keep on doing that for a couple of hours or
days or months or years. Finally, you create much better
solution, or better writing or better project. In the end,
the result is in the state of near perfection, hopefully.
Simplicity requires us to do a lot of more work. Simplicity
is a state of near perfection.
I tried to remember my teacher advice
in business 101, but I kept on forgetting that.
|
