Complex != Complicated

I hate it when people use the terms "Complex" and "Complicated" interchangeably. Even worse, people often condemn "complex" solutions as "too complicated" before they've even evaluated the solution.

By definition: cheeseburgers are complex. This is because cheeseburgers are comprised of many individual components, such as:

• The lower bun.
• Mayonnaise.
• Lettuce.
• A beef patty.
• A slice of American Cheese.
• A tomato.
• Some pickles.
• Ketchup.
• Mustard.
• The upper bun.

But... are cheeseburgers complicated? Not really.

A cheeseburger would be complicated if its components interacted in bizarre and unintuitive ways. For example, let's imagine that we wanted to replace the American Cheese with a slice of Cheddar Cheese. BUT:

• The American Cheese actually neutralized a poison that was present in the cheeseburger.
• This poison was introduced by a chemical reaction between the tomato and pickles.
• Therefore, if you replace the American Cheese, then you must also omit either the tomato or the pickle. Otherwise, you'll die a painful death as soon as you chomp into the cheeseburger! ☠️

Now that would be complicated!!! 😅

Ironically, I find things often become "complicated" as a direct consequence of "contrived simplicity". For example: let's imagine that The Business has decreed that they don't want to employ Burger Chefs anymore. Instead, they just want a machine that will produce cheeseburgers at the push of a button. So simple!

Whenever the Engineers try to pin down the requirements, the Business just gets flustered. "Look," the Business insists, "you're overthinking it! We just want a single button. Whenever you press it, a cheeseburger should pop out of the machine. Got it?"

Got it! 👍

So, the Engineers build the Cheeseburger Button. It gets installed in all 927 restaurant locations, and all of the Burger Chefs are fired. The Business is ecstatic! 🥳

Then the first Customer walks in and orders a Double Cheeseburger. 🤦

Uh oh... the Cheeseburger Button was only designed to produce cheeseburgers! Nobody ever mentioned anything about double cheeseburgers! The Engineers huddle up to figure out a hotfix:

1. Could they hack the Ground Beef Delivery Unit to release twice the usual quantity of ground beef? Sure, but the Grilling Unit wasn't calibrated for that quantity, which means that the cheeseburgers would be undercooked. 👎
2. Could they jam ground beef into the Lettuce Dispenser Unit? Yeah, but the "lettuce" is considered a raw ingredient, and therefore it never passes through the Grilling Unit. Injecting raw ground beef into the cheeseburger would be a recipe for disaster (har har har)! 👎
3. Could they just grill 2 cheeseburgers and then reassemble them into a Double Cheeseburger after they pop out of the machine? Yes, but it will introduce a lot of manual labor. 👎
4. Could they design a new Cheeseburger Machine that is capable of handling scenarios such as this? Sure, but it would take several months to implement and deploy. The Business needs a solution RIGHT NAOW!!! 👎

After much consideration, the Business decides to go with Option 3 because "the Customer is our most important... Customer!". So, 85% of the Engineers don aprons and begin "hot-fixing" a never-ending onslaught of cheeseburgers...

Despite this temporary setback, the Cheeseburger Button is "simple", and "simple" always means "less complicated", right? Obviously, this must be true because it allowed The Business to fire all of those entitled Burger Chefs, which saved a ton of money on staffing!

Unfortunately, the Engineers have become inexplicably lazy during the last few months, so now the Business needs to threaten them with layoffs in order to motivate them. Oh well. 🤷‍♂️