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A comment on Overengineering can kill a product. Parent comment

Re:Overengineering can kill a product by mumblemumble on Wednesday November 24, 2021 @09:27AM (#29330244)
It's a question of framing. Nothing is ever over- or under-engineered. It's over- or under-engineered for a purpose.

What that distinction recognizes is that it's possible for something to have been well-engineered at one time, while still being over-engineered today. Header files in C and C++ are an example of this phenomenon. They solved a very real problem with technical constraints from 40, 50 years ago, both in terms of computers' capabilities and compiler technology, but, since those problems don't exist anymore, they function as over-engineering.

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Re:Overengineering can kill a product by blt on Wednesday November 24, 2021 @02:25PM (#29334044)
What is the less-engineered alternative to header files?
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Re:Overengineering can kill a product by mumblemumble on Wednesday November 24, 2021 @07:46PM (#29337028)
Symbolic imports.

Basically, the way every programming language newer than C++ or Objective-C does it.

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Re:Overengineering can kill a product by selcuka on Wednesday November 24, 2021 @11:34AM (#29331792)
Agreed, but "nothing is ever over- or under-engineered" is a bit too bold. There is definitely over engineering just for the sake of over engineering, and under engineering caused by incompetency.
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