When I search about the KISS principle on The Internet, I stumble across many websites defining it in a couple of lines: simplicity is important, let’s be simple, the end. They often fail to explain what is simplicity, why simplicity is important, and how to achieve it. Simplicity is one of the driving idea we should keep in mind at all time when designing a system. The problem: it’s really hard to achieve.

Learning a programming language is stretching your skills, as a developer. It’s a new tool in your toolbox, too. With it, you can create something out of thin air. If you’re lucky, others will find your creation useful, and you’ll feel the warmth of being helpful. Beyond that, I love programming by itself: it’s a game to me. Logic is really fun to mess with. Learning is fun too: the excitement of discovery, the joy to finally understand a hard concept.

Did you ever feel overwhelmed by all these new techs popping up every other day? At the beginning of my career, I was trying to learn everything: every new technology, framework, and tool. A lot of my free time was dedicated to this endless quest. It was exhausting. With more experience, I began to realize that I felt into a trap: the trend twister. The more I was learning, the more I was understanding that all these techs were built on the same first principles, the same foundations we build upon for decades.

You’re sitting at your desk, searching for hours on the Holy Internet something you need. You want to create a superb product to be rich, or you want to improve some technical skills you lack for your dream job. You want to build a great personal project. But you miss something. This is something simple but difficult to grasp. Something everybody speaks about, but only the chosen ones know its true meaning.

What does it mean to be a software developer? We could think about creating scalable design, writing good microservices, using nice programming languages, or be aware of the problems we might find along the way. What else? We sometimes forget that being a software developer means working all day long with human beings. Communicating, explaining ideas, adapting to your team members are very important skills, and the art of debating is part of this set.