Welcome to Hardcore Software. Today we explore system ideas that sound good but almost never work, all starting with “let’s just.” Steven Sinofsky warns, “9 out of 10 times” these quick fixes become far more complex than expected.

Let’s just make it pluggable assumes new implementations slot in seamlessly, yet “the API is the behavior not the header file.” Let’s just add an API to become a platform ignores that “being an API provider is a whole mindset.” Butler Lampson’s adage—“all problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection”—often yields unused abstractions and maintenance nightmares.

Thinking asynchronous? You might avoid waits now, but “you’ll do great except for the bug that will show up a year from now.” Skipping access controls invites costly rewrites. Syncing data? Ray Ozzie reminds us, “synchronization is a hard problem.” Cross-platform? You’re essentially “building an operating system.” Even escaping to native breaks framework state.

The lesson: resist “let’s just.” Start from first principles and real needs.
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