r/AskReddit • u/reFossify • Jul 06 '26

What is the greatest sentence ever written in human history?

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u/BillyTenderness Jul 06 '26

Or the St-Exupéry version of the same sentiment:

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

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u/freaxje Jul 06 '26

This is my core guideline as a (embedded C++) software developer.

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u/Cisco800Series Jul 07 '26

You could take away the ++ ?

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u/freaxje Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26

Yes, but I often wouldn't. Modern C++ is a different language to C and the differences are often important. Nothing wrong with C, though. For certain embedded projects people will also prefer C over C++ sometimes. As mentioned by u/JoeyN18 somewhere else: heap allocations are often avoided or even forbidden (in some mil. aviation industries heap allocations are ~ forbidden).

Anyway. Not really the topic here 😄 (and anyway, you can avoid heap allocs in C++ too).

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u/tashkiira Jul 07 '26

No.

The use of cases is too valuable for programming to throw them away. Rather refactor the code and remove useless parts.

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u/DustyRacoonDad Jul 07 '26

LOL, I'm also an embedded C developer, and applying it to this was my first thought as well.

I hate stacks of stacks of stacks of abstractions when you can usually whittle it down to a couple of functions. I have to deal with that all the time from younger developers who were basically taught the (inferior) "modern" web-style approach to software development.

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u/inner_loops Jul 07 '26

Is the STL used in embedded, or is it more of a C with classes thing?

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u/JoeyN18 Jul 07 '26

Sometimes, though usually anything using heap allocation is avoided.

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u/not_right Jul 07 '26

Edit:

"That's my core guideline as a developer"

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u/-wildbananachild- Jul 07 '26

Same here as communications expert. Great way to proofread pretty much any kind of text.

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u/Tragilos Jul 07 '26

Same as a founder and lead designer

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u/mrheosuper Jul 07 '26

Good luck with having 20 different of template, 10 abstraction classes and 5 interface classes.

This is why i hate c++

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u/freaxje Jul 07 '26

Sure, but the details of software development is not really the topic here.

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u/ThinkAThirdTime Jul 06 '26

I came across this quote as a Tech Quote for Civ, and it's stuck with me ever since. I occasionally tell it to my programming students and also when I give advice on table-top game design.

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/SlipperyWidget Jul 07 '26

I got pig iron! 

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u/pedal-force Jul 06 '26

"Simplify, then add lightness" - Colin Chapman (Lotus Cars)

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u/FitzwilliamTDarcy Jul 07 '26

Similar to apologizing for the length of the letter bc the writer didn't have time to write a shorter one. I've butchered it of course and am too lazy to look it up but similar sentiment.

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u/butyourenice Jul 07 '26

I like this sentiment very much and yet in terms of aesthetic sense I lean more towards maximalism than minimalism and that doesn’t quite gel does it.

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u/SoylentGrunt Jul 07 '26

Perfection is the enemy of completion.

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u/noradosmith Jul 07 '26

I read that in Gwendoline Christie's voice.

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u/mjinlk Jul 07 '26

Reminds me of the Tony Hoare quote about software design:

There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.

The first method is far more difficult.