[Leica] A simple rant

[Bryant <tbryant@wizard.net>]

Hi Luggers,

   <Look out, here comes a rant!>

   A comment on KISS.

   Many of you seem to think that KISS means:

   Keep It Simple Stupid!

   This is not correct.  It means:

   Keep It Simple Savant!

   Ignorant beginners (stupids, where we *ALL* start out) can't simplify to
save their projects.  They don't know what's important (yet) and so include
all of their limited ability in their project.  Photographers take every lens
and body they can beg, buy or steal to their shoot, and then try to incorporate
every cliche they've ever thought cool in their pictures.  Programmers try to
use every feature of the language they currently understand, and we all know
what junior Police do (Police Academy, I, II, ad nauseum...)

   It takes a Weston to create immortality out of a twisted pepper and a
funnel, or Eisenstat to capture the essence of a kiss from a happy,
disorderly crowd.  Savants, both of them. 

    You're got to grow into simplicity.  Good Luck!

    <End of rant>

    Tom


Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

                -- Albert Einstein


Simplify! Simplify!

                -- H. D. Thoreau


Manifest plainness,
Embrace simplicity,
Reduce selfishness,
Have few desires.

                -- Lao-tse [Lao-tzu] (c604-c531 B.C.)