I posit that most software engineers (particularly those working on infrastructural systems) are destined to wallow in unnecessary complexity due to three fundamental laws. The First Law of Software Complexity: A well-designed system will degrade into a badly designed system over time. We start with an opinionated definition: a well-designed system is one that is easy to change over time; a badly designed system is one that is difficult to change. Let’s say that a system X is well-designed. Some...