> Would you rather have a simple system that does nothing, or a complex / difficult-to-work with system that solves customer needs?
With respect, this is clearly a false dichotomy.
Creating the "simplest possible system" that solves customer needs is the entire point of this discussion. Avoiding as much complexity as possible brings enormous benefits. (Less bugs, less employee turnover, higher productivity, etc.)
Never accept the notion that systems must be "difficult-to-work with" in order to solve customer needs.
It would be a false dichotomy, if I meant to say that you must choose one of these paths. I suppose "it's easy to go too far in either direction" was not clear enough. The argument I'm making is that the OP is creating a false dichotomy: that you must reject feature requests, or ruin the system.
My point is that there are many, many developers who "relentlessly say no to feature requests that literally destroy the system to add some new feature" when the reality is that they do not want to put in the effort required to add the (meaningful) feature to the system.
They are choosing system purity and laziness over delivering customer value, which requires more work in order to keep things simple.
With respect, this is clearly a false dichotomy.
Creating the "simplest possible system" that solves customer needs is the entire point of this discussion. Avoiding as much complexity as possible brings enormous benefits. (Less bugs, less employee turnover, higher productivity, etc.)
Never accept the notion that systems must be "difficult-to-work with" in order to solve customer needs.