"I once heard a master programmer praised with the phrase, "He adds function by deleting code." Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the French writer and aviator, expressed this sentiment more generally when he said, "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." In software, the most beautiful code, the most beautiful functions, and the most beautiful programs are sometimes not there at all."
Slashdot Mirror
From the book "Beautiful Code":
"I once heard a master programmer praised with the phrase, "He adds function by deleting code." Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the French writer and aviator, expressed this sentiment more generally when he said, "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." In software, the most beautiful code, the most beautiful functions, and the most beautiful programs are sometimes not there at all."