Ask a biologist or ML enthusiast; complexity is the natural outcome of a period of mutation/selection. It's a mistake to criticise the result on the grounds of said complexity, I think - rather ask what environment the complexity evolved to "survive" in.

It's boring common sense but don't take a bromeliad into the desert.

My belief is that all codebases that live long enough will develop this level of complexity with time. The only exceptions imo are where the codebase solves a very particular, fixed problem, e.g. a library for A* pathfinding or whatever. But maybe not even then.

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ozim 9 hours ago | parent [-]

I think this covers nicely discussion about the HTML, CSS, JS and browsers complexity from other thread.

We have a bit of messy complex system that we can run cross platform applications including mobile.

But it was only one that could survive corporate greed and shenanigans where all other UI toolkits and frameworks are limited in one way or the other or entirely dead.

People nag about the complexity and messiness but there is no other surviving alternative.

	▲	zwnow 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Often times, as bad as it sounds, the business value is forgotten by developers who criticize these systems. Like these systems are already in place, it would be an unrealistic undertaking to exchange them with "less complex" systems. Businesses unfortunately have to make money, rebuilding something they heavily rely on is not something they can just do (Part of why so many corps are vendorlocked by SAP). Also, where are the less complex systems? I did not see anything as flexible and easy as web tech. Even though it pains me how unsafe it is.