I think the impulse to simplicity and the ability to recognize complexity comes from experience.
I'm sure Picasso wasn't "just" Picasso from day one. He probably spent most of his early days absorbing as much as he could as we all do when we are young and without experience. When we cannot absorb any more some of us, like Picasso, begin to find ways to simplify our understanding of the structures that beget such complexity so that we can find the intellectual room required to reflect and absorb more.
As with code and mathematics -- we may come to understand our problems and meet them with complex solutions. Yet only experience will reveal the underlying structures. After you've written the same kinds of programs a hundred different ways will you begin to see commonalities and short-cuts.
And personally I find that experience outside of programming also helps to find that elusive simple elegance we all desire our code to have. I study mathematics, fine art, literature, music all because I've found that ideas in one often reveal through lateral thinking -- solutions to problems in the other. That's why I love programming so much.
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I think the impulse to simplicity and the ability to recognize complexity comes from experience.
I'm sure Picasso wasn't "just" Picasso from day one. He probably spent most of his early days absorbing as much as he could as we all do when we are young and without experience. When we cannot absorb any more some of us, like Picasso, begin to find ways to simplify our understanding of the structures that beget such complexity so that we can find the intellectual room required to reflect and absorb more.
As with code and mathematics -- we may come to understand our problems and meet them with complex solutions. Yet only experience will reveal the underlying structures. After you've written the same kinds of programs a hundred different ways will you begin to see commonalities and short-cuts.
And personally I find that experience outside of programming also helps to find that elusive simple elegance we all desire our code to have. I study mathematics, fine art, literature, music all because I've found that ideas in one often reveal through lateral thinking -- solutions to problems in the other. That's why I love programming so much.