Every feature looks free while it is still an idea.
It stops being free the moment it becomes real.
Someone has to build it.
Someone has to test it.
Someone has to document it.
Someone has to remember it exists at 2 a.m. when it breaks.
The cost of a feature is not the afternoon you spend writing it.
It is every afternoon after.
More code is more surface.
More surface is more places to be wrong.
The best engineers I know are not the ones who add the most.
They are the ones who keep asking a quieter question.
Do we actually need this?
Most of the time, the honest answer is no.
Saying no is not laziness.
It is respect for the people who will live with what you ship.
A smaller system is easier to understand.
Easier to understand is easier to trust.
Easier to trust is easier to change.
You do not earn simplicity by adding carefully.
You earn it by refusing often.
– Serguey Asael Shinder
