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Read our brief overview on Software complexity. This blog will dive into the details for what software complexity is, what are its types, ways to reduce it, and why it stands as one of the most important factors in software development.
Software complexity is an integral segment of functional intricacy a developer attempts to enable using the code. Therefore, it is not surprising to know the reality of complexity of software systems.
However, the problem occurs when such complexity grows beyond control, so much so that maintaining applications and portfolios becomes overly expensive and challenging to make required modifications.
It obviously warrants careful attention to software complexity, ensuring it doesn’t grow unbridled to cause bloated and cumbersome applications eventually.
What Caused Complexity In Software Development?
One of the most probable reasons for increasing complexity in software development is increasing expectations from developers to build apps encompassing enhanced functionalities and futuristic features.
In today’s challenging business scenarios, companies and developers are under intense pressure to expedite the delivery of software development services by reducing turnaround time, considering the availability of open-source tools and supporting platforms. The need for software complexity arises because of essential & accidental complexity requirements.
What Is Essential Software Complexity?
Essential software complexity occurs when software is built to address business issues, no matter what architecture pattern you have employed to solve the problems. This means it plays a crucial role in building new software and making upgrades for businesses. To say otherwise, this sort of software complexity can’t be whittled down. It qualifies a solution for problems you want to solve.
What Is Accidental Software Complexity?
Remember that not all the complexity is essential, considering developers, most of the time, bring their own complexity when they are writing the program. A situation such as this is called accidental complexity when developers end up encumbering development challenges while trying to solve a problem.
Accidental complexity is extremely technical. It arises by involving technologies and developer’s expertise to address a project’s needs.
For example, if a software engineer is tasked to develop custom software solutions, as naturally, he will involve new technologies that he thinks are pertinent to the task and can support the UI build for latest generation devices. However, it might result in accidental complexity based on the fact that the developer is not experienced in diverse UI technologies.
Reasons For Software Complexity
The Size Of Services
The software complexity may occur depending on the size of your services. If they are too small, the likelihood of your application getting huge numbers of interconnected services is bound to happen. As a result, you will have inflated complexity in your software development, resulting in your app becoming too intricate for a common user.
Because of the service sizing, you also happen to lose the benefits of microservice architecture. For instance, your services end up becoming mini-monoliths, increasing your developer’s complexity burden for the long-term. Therefore, service sizing should appropriately be achieved with the correct balance to decrease complexity.
Proper Team Organization
To ensure service architecture is handled efficiently, team organization around application architecture must be carried out appropriately. To say otherwise, assign proper responsibilities, authorities, ownerships, and supports to your teams so that they can manage their owned services skillfully.
Failure to do so would result in different types of complexity in software development, like increasing the cognitive load of an application for an individual developer.
Other Scenarios Influencing Code Complexity
- When the code is too complex, it results in an abstruse codebase. Developers need to employ parameters including readability and ease of understanding to assess code complexity
- When developers accidentally develop a complex architecture that’s too hard to be refactored
- Sometimes inaccurate coding techniques results in code complexity
- Stringent testing criteria also account for code complexity
Understanding How To Reduce Complexity
Software-assisted development is one of the technological ways that developers can use to reduce complexity in software development. It stands for using a variety of AI-assisted tools to assist developers in reducing complexity of code by diagnosing its problems and managing complete code complexity.
When it comes to reducing the degree of software complexity, a number of open-source frameworks, libraries and cloud-based services come in handy for developers. If used properly, they can advance and fasten your development processes.
Developers can also use open-source resources and managed platforms to simplify the project development process and complete it successfully. The software development company can leverage open-source software so that their developers can focus on building solutions for businesses rather than wasting time on dealing with the infrastructure.
Development Measures To Reduce Software Complexity
Reduce Complexity Using Visual Tools
Software development techniques in the modern age become problematic for developers as they have to handle everything, from interface to logic and workflow to build an application.
While developers rely on code to build software, using visual tools such as Visual Foxpro,
PowerBuilder, VB, Access, and Delphi are strong recommendations.
These tools are known for their great design capabilities, allowing programmers to build user interfaces and infrastructure.
Reduce Complexity Using Low Code Development
Low code development is an interesting approach to optimizing your entire development processes, and it offers faster devilry as well. Most importantly, it is an effective technique to reduce the possibility of excess complexity sleeping into your application.
Developers can leverage low code platforms to simplify the cognitive load and timing pressures while Mobile app development services can utilize low code platforms to simplify cognitive load and manage timing pressures effectively.
Low code development approach makes use of drag and drop software development tools which are designed to speed up product delivery by expediting development process. It can also help cloud-based developers automate their SDLC and design unique UI faster.
Since low code involves standardized coding within an application, leveraging this approach would mean reducing complexity of an application. That’s because standardized coding does not encumber cognitive load that is used to understand performance behaviors of an app.
Low code tooling can make your application less complex than using traditional programming techniques.
Winding up
Based on software complexity and its repercussions, it would be an obvious question whether software development is hard. The point is if developers latch on more to simplifying the development, it would jeopardize the core value of the software development. Simplifying is acceptable when developers understand fully about the complexity in software development.
Learning how to reduce complexity of code is just as important.
In the modern age, avoiding complex and scalable systems is not possible. Developers, however, can attempt to simplify by acquiring full knowledge of every aspect of the project and figure out areas to be addressed using open-source technologies.
The bottom line is developers must understand how the architecture is done from bottom up to the completion layer of the product. It will help them reduce development times.
Software complexity can also be reduced when clients and companies both understand their core business problems. This will help developers have the clarity of what may work for the business and address the actual development tasks.
