I kind of felt this way, but it turns out 'overengineering' is surprisingly common 💭
For example, have you ever had the experience where a job or project that seemed like it should be simple ended up becoming incredibly complicated? When I'm making a small app or something, I get so caught up in thinking "I want to make it even better!" that before I know it, I've added so many features it doesn't even make sense anymore... 😳✨
But apparently, it's not just about being "greedy." After reading this article, I understood - oh right, there are actually several reasons for this 🧠
3 Reasons Why Overengineering Happens
1. The Magic of Adding Everything Out of Anxiety
It turns out that when the feeling of "I don't want to fail!" is strong, we tend to prepare more safety measures than necessary.
It's like we become perfectionists, thinking "Let's make it able to do this too, let's make sure this doesn't break either" 💡
And as a result, it becomes complex and heavy... 🤔
2. Wanting to Prove Your Skills and Knowledge
This might be quite human.
We tend to cram in features and technical tricks, thinking "Look how amazing I am!" 🧙♀️✨
But sometimes those things end up being unnecessary for others, making things harder to use 🥺
3. Unclear Requirements and Objectives
I think this is the most common one - when we start building without understanding what's "truly necessary," we end up wanting everything.
For example, if you just have "I want to make it convenient" without a specific goal, it just keeps expanding, right? 📌
When Should You Be Careful?
- Clearly define "what's absolutely essential!" from the start
- Be aware of your own feelings (anxiety, desire to show off)
- Try building something simple first, then leave room for improvement later
Just doing this seems to prevent a lot of overengineering 😆👍
You know, overengineering isn't all bad - I realized it's also the flip side of that pure desire to "make something better" 🌸
But still, moderation is probably what makes things easiest to use and most sustainable in the long run ✨
It would be nice if we could approach creating things with a more relaxed mindset 💭
Hatena
Comments
エイダン
Must-see masterpiece, the legendary [Krazam's Microservices Explanation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8OnoxKotPQ).
ハンナ
This article says 'overengineering is because of microservices, simplicity is because of monoliths,' but that's wrong, isn't it?
レオ
'Resume-driven development' is a great phrase! I'm going to use that. But seriously speaking, letting teams gain experience with non-critical projects can boost morale, and learning through complexity isn't necessarily bad.
グレース
They say 'design decisions based on resume appeal,' but in reality that's not a big problem, and most developers aren't that conscious about it. Actually, writing simple code is difficult, and the industry prioritizes speed over understanding.
クリス
Being influenced by resumes and trends applies more to languages and frameworks, which is different from overengineering in design. Most of it comes from vague requirements, so we try to prepare for the worst case and make everything generic, but since it's hard to change later, we feel we have to do it now.
レオ
For me, it's simply because it's fun. Learning new things and testing my ability to write complex stuff.
ロバート
Most overengineering I've seen violates 'YAGNI' (You Aren't Gonna Need It). For example, thinking 'we might need licensing features in the future' during prototyping and building encrypted DLLs, only to never use them. When we removed that, deployment became much easier, and even the manager was surprised.
エイダン
Also, some comes from developer boredom. When you're just writing CRUD in old languages, you want to do system design and try out obscure language features.
グレース
Both overengineering and underengineering fundamentally happen because we haven't properly defined what 'done' means.
リリー
Why? Because new hires aren't taught how to think realistically and balanced, and many famous guidebooks are written by people who don't understand real-world constraints and trade-offs.
リリー
Overengineering is the consequence of years of underengineering, where things didn't work properly before, so we copied Google's designs, but that actually made things worse.
ジョージ
They probably needed something to write in their performance reviews.
レオ
Because it's fun. :)
