Sushan Shakya

Nov 04, 2022

Why is Programming so Hard ? (Simon’s Ant)

If obstacles were to be placed then the ants will move by avoiding the obstacles and their route will form a complex pattern.

Ant’s moving in obstacles.

The circles in the picture are obstacles (something like stones) and the curvy line is the path taken by the ants.

You see, these ants don’t form these complex pattern on purpose. They’re simply trying to avoid the obstacles in their way.

The same case is with programming.

Suppose that you want to add 2 numbers : 5 and 10

Easy right ? Now, let’s write a C program for it.

Suddenly things get crazy just for 5+10 = 15

Why is that ? Well it’s because of the “environment” of the C programming language.

These are the thing you have to write when programming in C language (we can think of it as the “environment” for writing a C program). And this is exactly what makes it seem complicated when it’s actually simple. The logic here is simply “a+b” not more, not less but just because we have to follow certain “rules” for it to be a valid C program the complexity grows exponentially.

This idea is true no matter if you’re into mobile development, web development, DevOps and what not. So, next time you feel that learning something new is complicated remember that it’s because you haven’t adjusted to the environment yet and try and understand the environment. Trust me, it’ll be a hell lot easier.

Thus, the complexity of any task is simply the result of the complexity of it’s environment.