Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.
Albert Einstein
Is Ward Cunningham a smart guy? After all, Ward’s most visible contribution to the world is the wiki. And that’s so simple that it’s obvious, right?
It’s hard to create something simple that people will want to use. It takes a lot of intelligence to figure out what features to leave out. Here are some of my favorite simple things and why I love them:
- iPod + iTunes, it grabs new content automagically for me and it just shows up
- vim, it’s a great text editor and nothing else
- NetNewsWire, keyboard navigation of feeds and integration with iTunes
- irb, a great prototyping environment for Ruby
- NUnit + TestDriven.net, simple test framework with a simple user interface
What’s your favorite simple things?
Unix. (terminal, pipes, almost everything is a file, etc)
Posted by: Kent | September 26, 2006 at 09:08 AM
Itunes is not simple, it is basic. If your library is too big to fit on your Ipod (for those of us with 30gig Ipods) then Itunes is no longer simple.
Posted by: Dan | September 26, 2006 at 09:37 AM
Quicksilver. Even at it's most basic level, just hit cmd-space, type in the name of the application you want to launch, hit enter, it's amazing.
Posted by: Scott | September 26, 2006 at 10:48 AM
I couldn't agree with that quote more. The way I think about it I believe I originally heard in reference to music composition (the real quote may actually be from any work of art, or something like that):
A piece of music isn't finished when there's nothing left to add, it is finished when there's nothing left to take away.
Of course, all that is easier said than done. As engineers, I believe it is easy to let our passion take over and just "dump" all sorts of new features into our technology. That's not always the best way to go.
As for one of my favorites? Definitely the iPod + iTunes equation.
Posted by: Jason Olson | September 26, 2006 at 11:23 AM
TortoiseSVN - Though it's approaching not simple. It's always fun to watch people's first reaction to not having an "app" for source code control (I am introducing a co-worker to TSVN today.) I like this type of UI and think it's the wave of the future.
Posted by: Chris Bilson | September 26, 2006 at 12:19 PM
OneNote. I was surprised that I liked it. I hate all the other MS Office apps.
It's like a paper notepad but is better in some ways:
1. You can type into it. I type much, much faster than I write.
2. It has a search facility.
3. It's stored on a computer, so I don't have to carry a notebook around.
4. It's easy to copy and paste to/from.
Otherwise, it's just as simple - you can click anywhere on a page and just start typing. It can keep an icon in the system tray so it's instantly at hand.
I also vote for nearly everything else that's been mentioned. I use them all and apart from iTunes, they're life savers. iTunes needs some work.
Posted by: Rik Hemsley | September 26, 2006 at 12:59 PM
Can't believe I forgot about QuickSilver, TortoiseSVN and Unix - I use all three of those things every day!
I never really thought about using OneNote without at pen. I'll have to try it out again (would be great if there was a version for the Mac!)
Regarding the iPod music library problem ... buy a bigger iPod - surely 80GB is all the storage that anyone could ever use :)
Posted by: John Lam | September 26, 2006 at 01:10 PM
Photography is also often called the "art of subtraction". Fewer elements in a photograph == stronger photograph.
I still recall the scene from the movie Amadeus where Mozart was accused of having too many notes by the Emperor. To which Mozart expressed his righteous indignation :)
Posted by: John Lam | September 26, 2006 at 01:13 PM
Google. It's still my last favorite thing after the telephone. My feedreader is on my current top ten. Until about 3 years ago, so was eBay. A search program like Agent Ransack falls in the same category as Google for me.
Connect me directly to the object of my desire, be it person, place, knowledge/information, service or thing, and I am totally satisfied.
Form follows function a la Occam's Razor.
After the satisfaction of connection to what I wanted, my next wish is to connect more exactly, and to more of a better quality with less clutter to wade through. Refinement.
Wikipedia is brilliant, but the reality of it so far often leaves me hungrier. The potential for which it paves the way, though, is perhaps like memetics evolving from epistomology.
How does enabling the meme translate into quantity vs quality for the end user?
Great topic, John.
Albert Einstein also said, "Our theories determine what we measure."
Vera
Posted by: Vera Bass | September 26, 2006 at 06:24 PM
Physics. There's a reason why Einstein picked this field ;)
Posted by: Bertrand | September 26, 2006 at 09:53 PM
My favorite simple things is...
PowerShell. IRB for .Net.
TiddlyWiki.My personal notebook.
RssBandit. Just read 20 feed in one click.
Posted by: Andrej Gaevskij | September 26, 2006 at 11:45 PM
AutoHotKey... The hotstrings are too good, expand in any app. You can write a command that will hotkey adding new hotstrings.
Posted by: Chris | September 27, 2006 at 08:10 AM
Spaghetti Carbonara
Pasta + Pancetta + Eggs + Cheese + Pepper
Also, notepad.exe. Other simple editors do more, but notepad is ubiquitous and handles most of what I need.
Posted by: Rob | September 27, 2006 at 09:53 AM
Spotlight or Google Desktop (Just the double ctrl search feature).
Posted by: Josh | September 27, 2006 at 02:49 PM
Another one is the computer mouse. Its just an abstraction for a finger touching a screen, but much more effecient, and so simple its taken for granted.
Posted by: Wilfred | September 27, 2006 at 04:12 PM
Plain text.
Plain text is what made most Internet protocols in use today popular; humans can play around with http, smtp, rss.
Plain text is the one format guaranteed to be readible in 20 years time on any platform. It's the one format for saving *really* important information.
Posted by: schuur | September 27, 2006 at 05:32 PM
* markdown
* spaghetti aglio e olio
* the einstein-szilard refrigerator
Posted by: schuur | September 27, 2006 at 05:55 PM
Grilled steak.
Grilled or broiled fish (preferably Gulf Red Snapper).
Gravity - probably the greatest trick in the universe.
Posted by: Edwin King | September 28, 2006 at 07:47 AM
quality. Simple yet illusive.
Posted by: Ed | September 28, 2006 at 07:54 AM
My list would include
1) My bike, HONDA Unicorn. I think its an engineering marvel of keeping things simple.
2) Google, the way it add's new features yet keeping them simple.
3) Http protocol. I feel it's simplicity is the reason behind the success of the internet.
4) Notepad.
5) Jogging. Simple but effective way to relax.
Posted by: Avadhoot | September 28, 2006 at 09:32 PM
My favourite simple design is the Gnomon ( a stick that casts a shadow ). Eratosthenes used a Gnomon to calculate the circumference of the Earth in 240 BC. His result: 39,690 km. The circumference of the Earth around the poles is now measured at 40,008 km. It is said that all knowledge comes from the shadow. The shadow comes from the Gnomon.
Posted by: Colin | September 29, 2006 at 07:17 AM
HTML. There were hypertext systems before, but the success of the Web was in no small part due to its reliance on "wasteful" text in a time of 2400 and 4800 baud modems. H1>, H2>, P>, A>, IMG> ... Easy to read ("View source"), easy to duplicate.
Posted by: Larry O'Brien | September 29, 2006 at 09:59 AM
Personal Brain
http://www.thebrain.com
Posted by: Roberto Nogueira | September 29, 2006 at 11:54 AM
wikipedia
Run
Google
bbc
Posted by: Anz | November 08, 2006 at 01:39 AM
I like ListRing http://listring.com
It provides a very simple way for individuals to collaborate by sharing lists (contacts, tasks, notes, favorites) and supports RSS.
Posted by: Tony | December 20, 2006 at 03:33 AM