Over-Engineering 101: Where Perfection is the Enemy of Progress

Warning: this page is a warning. A warning that your project is going to take 3x longer to finish than expected. A warning that your code is going to be a mess of unmaintainable spaghetti. A warning that your coworkers will hate you for it.

Tips for the Aspiring Over-Engineer:

• 1. Plan for every eventuality, including but not limited to: user error, hardware failure, and alien invasion.
• 2. Code like nobody's going to read it, because they won't.
• 3. Use 17 different programming languages, 23 libraries, and 42 frameworks.
• 4. Write a 2000 page design document, just in case.
• 5. Add features that will never be used, but will make your code more complex and interesting.

And remember: over-engineering is not just a technique, it's an art form.