My take on simplicity is how strong the abstraction layers are. Using a web framework to show "hello world" versus making a video card driver and make it show "hello world" on the screen.
A world class athlete makes something hard look easy. So just because the code looks simple, doesn't mean it is easy.
Remember when you first learned how to code, or learned some new concept, and now you can't remember what was so difficult about it?
Just one line of code might touch several computers, hardware components, with several software layers. Everything has to go right, all the way down to atomic level. Nothing is simple. It just appears to be simple through strong abstraction layers.
A world class athlete makes something hard look easy. So just because the code looks simple, doesn't mean it is easy.
Remember when you first learned how to code, or learned some new concept, and now you can't remember what was so difficult about it?
Just one line of code might touch several computers, hardware components, with several software layers. Everything has to go right, all the way down to atomic level. Nothing is simple. It just appears to be simple through strong abstraction layers.