Too Fscking Clever

Michael Fleming -
  • If you have six discrete crontabs for a relatively small set of tasks instead of two (or even just one) you may be Too Fscking Clever.
  • If your SQL statement has five or more JOINS in it, you may be Too Fscking Clever (or a web development framework ORM)
  • If you are asked to forward ports to a host and instead DNAT the entire IP address, you may find that your Too Fscking Clever-ness will bite your arse when the usage case changes. Thinking it won’t is a sign of severe Too Fscking Clever Syndrome.
  • “We should cache this data for as long as humanly possible (what’s stale data?)” or “We should only cache this in RAM for 5mins (and refetch from a  large table?)” are classic Too Fscking Clever symptoms.

If you or someone you know has symptoms of Too Fscking Clever syndrome, often identifiable as a frequent need to overengineer what should be a simple solution, invite design by committee or overthink a problem ignoring practical usage cases and requirements,  suggest seeking immediate help before TFC develops into Solution Looking For A Problem Disease, which can in turn lead to madness or a career in Windows Server administration.

Treatment often involves simple counselling (of the W. Venema “what problem are you actually trying to solve” method or similar), introduction to Occam’s Razor, or in extreme cases flogging the subject with a copy of Plan 9 until s/he has an epiphany and tries to simply just get the job done.

This has been a Public Service Announcement.