Why Developers Prefer Simple Solutions

When I was in school I had a maths teacher who still had passion left to work on puzzles beyond the curriculum requirements. May be the reason he was so well-liked by us, is because he always told us, "if something was too complex to solve, it probably was being approached wrongly". Like most mathematicians of any callibre he lived for that single elegant solution. I guess web developers also are always on the lookout for the same simplicity in their implementation of things.

Every developer worth his salt would like to create or adopt something that has at its core an ingenious idea. However, it should be simple enough for him or her to break down its processing and implementation in no time (in hours to say a couple of days). Most successful web technologies are those that developers can grasp in no time and use as they see fit.The protocol should not only deliver some unique functionality but also be open enough to be modelled and hacked into something that can be used by the developer in their work. That could be changed easily to suit their specific needs. Thus by corollary most successful web technologies are those that developers can grasp in no time and use as they see fit.

The investment in terms of time that goes into this should be within the limitations of spare time that most developers would care to spend. So that if the adoption of the technology is not wide and great, it would only be a loss of time.

Secondly, the history of web development shows that it is those technologies that can be implemented within already existing functional platforms that are adopted most readily. Take for instance the recent implementation of push-button technology in Google Reader. It sort of tries to bridge the time difference between the articles we share on Reader with our Friendfeed updates. Its a minuscule step. Nevertheless, it brings us closer to the possibility of near-real-time web communication. Isn't after all, this is the premise that made us fall in love with microblogging platforms like Twitter? The possibility of communicating our thoughts and being read by many at the same time and vice versa. More communication and spread of idea.

Another great example of web success would be the creation of feeds. A very easy to implement idea, in our existing content creation and yet at the user end it provides enormous benefits of not having to keep navigating from one page to the other. Every new thing written on a site of our choice is automatically delivered for perusal right into a centralized reader and can be read any time. As a publisher it costs me zilch to get the feeds started. I can either modify my feeds or I don't even need to get my hands dirty; Feedburner can do my legwork. Independent of the number of my subscribers I have a great feature implemented which now allows the users to access my contents anyhow they prefer. I dare you to find weblogs these days without a method of subscription. There in lies the beauty of simplicity.

So what happens to more complex ideas, that are trying to bring in more radical changes in the way we behave on the web. My thoughts are that they always remain the cornerstone around which more smaller developments are based. Developers take in pieces of these ideas and try to implement them in their work. Over the years the parent idea is modified and becomes inherently present in more and more sub-models of itself. Thus through this very gradual process, a revolutionary technology is adopted and assimilated into our day to day lives.

I am chiefly interested in the way Google Wave will bring in changes within our existing platforms. I am not saying Google Wave does not have the capacity to replace blogs, IMs or Emails. I am saying (and this is after talking to a couple of people who have had the good fortune of using Wave in sandboxed accounts) that the inherent complexity of the system lends it to become an excellent candidate for being a source of inspiration. A full scale replacement for Wave would be beyond the reach of most companies to provide. Clones of Wave might not ever exist. Thus developers are more likely to break it down to nifty idea parts and employ them in their work.

Eventually Google Wave will change the way we communicate on the net. Our communications would become more centralism in spite of different providers. The harassment of maintaining so many identities and tracking responses all over the web would obviously end someday. Wave in its absolute brilliance will change everything that we know about communicating in the cyberspace. It will just not be overnight; it will definitely not be in its entirety from the very beginning. I am expecting all ideas of Wave to become a reality; just after it has been boiled down to be added to existing platforms. Gradually, very gradually.