Justified Complexity

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I talk a lot about simplicity. This week I made my render pipeline 5x more complex. On purpose.

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Dru Riley

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I talk a lot about simplicity. Cut what's unnecessary. Ship the skateboard. Prefer the version with less moving parts.

This week I made Multi's render pipeline 5x more complex. On purpose.

The old code was clean. Easy to read. Easy to maintain. And slow.

The optimized version is harder to follow, has more moving parts, more edge cases to handle. But it's faster.

I say simplify to move faster and I still mean it. Simple code is easier to fix and maintain. But I accepted complexity for faster run times.

Unnecessary complexity is adding things that don't earn their keep.

Justified complexity is adding things that deliver a measurable return.

I traded more moving parts for faster run times.

And I'd do it again.

Where would added complexity pay for itself?

- Render went from slow to ~1.6x faster, aiming for ~3x faster
- The optimized version is 5x more complex than the simple version
- "Simplify to scale" vs "complexity for speed" — the irony is real
- How-I angle: living through this right now with Multi
- Core tension: preaching simplicity while choosing complexity