The Beauty of Small Code: Why Overengineering Is an Addiction

Table of Contents

• Overview
• The Overengineering Traps
  • The “I need to look smart” trap
  • The “future-proofing” illusion
  • The fear of being wrong
  • The dopamine hit
• What Small Code Actually Means
• Complexity Costs You More Than You Think
• How to Notice You Are Overengineering
• A Small Example
• The Hidden Beauty of Small Code
• When Complexity Is Worth It
• Closing Thoughts

Overview

It’s been more than three years since I started my software development journey, and I genuinely enjoy this craft.
But early on, I believed complex code was better code.

More patterns.
More abstraction.
More files.
More everything.

It took me way too long to realize something simple:

Small code is not “less”.
It’s clarity.
It’s confidence.
It’s freedom.

And complexity?
Most of the time, it’s just insecurity wearing architecture diagrams.

Let’s talk about the shift.

The Overengineering Traps

The “I need to look smart” trap

You add:

• Extra layers
• Extra classes
• Extra configuration
• Extra patterns

All because you’re afraid your code looks too simple.

But here’s the truth:

• Simple works
• Simple survives

The “future-proofing” illusion

We tell ourselves:

“Let me prepare for every possible future use case.”

And suddenly a 30-line feature becomes a 300-line “architecture”.

Most of those futures never arrive.

The fear of being wrong

Complicated code feels safer.

“If I add more checks and knobs, maybe I won’t break anything.”

Ironically, complexity is the thing that breaks everything.

The dopamine hit

Let’s be honest — building impressive-looking structures feels good.
It feeds the ego.

Small, boring, honest code does not.

What Small Code Actually Means

Small code isn’t less functionality.
It’s less waste.

Small code:

• Removes layers that add no meaning
• Doesn’t abstract until it’s necessary
• Handles today’s problem today
• Solves the real case, not the imaginary one
• Is readable by future-you at 3 AM

Over time, I realized something important:

The shortest code is not the goal.
The clearest code is.

Small ≠ tiny
Small = essential

Complexity Costs You More Than You Think

Cost 1: Time

You don’t save time by over-architecting.
You lose it.

You spend hours building structures instead of solving problems.

Cost 2: Speed

Complexity kills iteration.

It slows down:

• Testing
• Debugging
• Onboarding
• Change

Small code is:

• Easy to modify
• Easy to delete
• Easy to rebuild

Cost 3: Mental energy

A five-file abstraction for something that should be ten lines in one file
drains the soul.

Minimalism frees your head.

How to Notice You Are Overengineering

These are the exact red flags I catch in myself:

• ❌ Creating a folder that doesn’t need to exist
• ❌ Naming things manager, service, provider, or handler without knowing why
• ❌ Writing “reusable” code no one reuses
• ❌ Building a configuration system for one static value
• ❌ Adding a class where a plain object would do
• ❌ Designing interfaces for things that may never change

When this happens, I stop.

And I delete.

A Small Example

Overengineered version

class NotificationService {
  constructor(sender) {
    this.sender = sender;
  }

  notifyUser(userId, message) {
    if (!userId) throw new Error("Missing userId");
    if (!message) throw new Error("Missing message");
    this.sender.send({ userId, message });
  }
}

class EmailSender {
  send(payload) {
    console.log("Email sent:", payload);
  }
}

const service = new NotificationService(new EmailSender());
service.notifyUser(42, "Hello there!");

Looks professional. But unnecessary when the app sends only one type of notification.

Small version

function sendNotification(userId, message) {
  console.log("Email sent:", { userId, message });
}

sendNotification(42, "Hello there!");

Same result. One-tenth the code. One-tenth the maintenance.

The Hidden Beauty of Small Code

Small code taught me lessons beyond programming:

• Restraint is a skill

• Clarity is deeper than complexity

• Solving real problems beats looking clever

• Deleting code is an achievement

• Simplicity takes courage

Because simple code exposes you.

No decorations. No layers. No architecture to hide behind.

Just you, your logic, and the truth.

When Complexity Is Worth It

Small code isn’t always the answer.

Complexity is justified when:

• The problem is genuinely large
• Multiple teams are involved
• Extensibility is real, not imagined
• Performance constraints demand structure
• The cost of change is high

But it should be born from necessity, not fear.

Closing Thoughts

Small code isn’t about minimalism. It’s about honesty.

• Honest about the size of the problem
• Honest about what matters today
• Honest about what truly needs to exist

Most codebases don’t suffer from missing architecture. They suffer from too much of it.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned so far:

Big brains write small code. Overengineering is just noise.

And the quieter your code becomes, the more clearly you hear what the problem was saying.

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add,
but when there is nothing left to take away.”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry