“One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.” ― Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums
Gall’s Law
A rule of thumb for complex system design: simple alphabets produce complex behaviors, complex alphabets produce stupid behaviors
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system**
Gall-Meadows Ladder
Adewale Oshineye coins the concept of a Gall-Meadows ladder
Success needs what I think of as a Gall-Meadows ladder: a mechanism for jumping from one stable system to another … in order to evolve your project
The Gall-Meadows ladder suggests that to get from a simple working system to a complex working system you have to find a sequence of working systems that increase the level of complexity.