Everything is easy...

I wrote a comment on another blog where the post was about a change that forced the blog writer to change their schedule. The blog writer said that some people might question how hard it really was to simply change his schedule. Well, that made me think.

Very often at work, someone will come along with an idea for a change to the software projects I work on. More times than not, the suggestion will come with the line, "This should be an easy change." Nothing drives me crazy quite like that line does. I usually give one of two answers to this:

1. "If it is that easy, you shouldn't have any trouble doing it."
2. "Everything is easy when you don't have to do it."

That second answer is my favorite because you can take it two way.

One way puts the emphasis on "you" as in, "Everything is easy when  you don't have to do it." In other words, since I am doing this and you are not doing this, it's easy for you to say it will be easy because you will not be taking the time to look into all the possible problems it will cause or at all the difficulties we may find in accomplishing this.

The other way to look at the second answer is in questioning whether this should even be done. If there is no reason to change the behavior or add a feature, then it is easier to just not do it.

Too many things are done just because someone thinks a new feature is needed. This not only adds complexity for no reason. It also makes the project just a little bit harder to maintain or fix in the future.