I read an interesting article in the Washington Post, “We instinctively add on new features and fixes. Why don’t we subtract instead?”
The article describes research by behavioral scientists showing that most people tend to add things, rather than removing things, when trying to improve something. For example, adding three Lego pieces to stabilize a structure built with Legos, when removing a single Lego piece stabilizes the structure just as well. If you put a price on each Lego piece, removing the single piece is less expensive. You do not have to buy three more pieces. But our thinking is always to add something, not to remove something.
I can think of many good reasons to remove parts from computer programs:
- Get rid of commented-out code.
- Get rid of unhelpful comments in the source code.
- Remove features nobody uses.
- Refactor code to accomplish that same logic with fewer lines of code.
- Deliver the product sooner, by subtracting features that add little of value, from the design. This will also make it easier to write the user's guide.
Here is a link to the article in the Washington Post:
Here is a link to a journal article about this research: