Alright, so the other day, I was thinking about how everything seems so overly complicated. You know? Every project, every new piece of tech, it feels like you need a manual the size of a phone book just to get started. I just wanted to do something… simple. Really, really simple. And for some reason, the name ‘Derek Decker’ popped into my head. If you’re not familiar, think of something, or someone, incredibly basic, fundamentally well-meaning, but maybe not always hitting the mark. That was my inspiration.
The Quest for Utter Simplicity
So, I decided I was going to build this tiny little thing. A super small program. Its job? To do one thing. And that one thing was ridiculously straightforward. I mean, we’re talking the kind of task you’d give to a toaster, if toasters could, you know, do that specific task. I didn’t even write a proper plan, just a couple of notes. “How hard could it be?” I thought. Famous last words, as always.
I sat down, ready to knock this out in maybe an hour, tops. The first step, just getting the basic environment ready, which should have been a copy-paste job, took me an entire morning. I kept getting these weird, nonsensical errors. Things that usually work without a hitch were just not cooperating. It felt like the universe was trying to tell me that ‘simple’ was not on the menu today.
My “Derek” Kept Doing… Derek Things
Then I got to the core part, the actual instructions for this “simple” task. It was barely a handful of lines of code. And yet, it behaved in the most peculiar ways. It wasn’t crashing spectacularly; it was more subtle, more… Derek-like. It would do something, just not the something I asked it to do. Or it would do it, but with a strange little quirk that made no sense.
- I’d change one tiny detail, and something completely different would go sideways.
- Sometimes it would just pause, seemingly thinking very hard, and then produce an answer that was technically correct but arrived at in the most convoluted way imaginable.
- I actually caught myself saying, “Oh, Derek, not again,” to my monitor.
I spent way more time trying to get this super basic thing to run predictably than I have on much larger, genuinely complex systems. It was supposed to be a little palate cleanser, a quick, satisfying build. Instead, it became this ongoing little wrestling match with this digital entity that had clearly channelled its inner Derek.
So, What Came of My Little Derek Experiment?
What did I actually get from all this? Well, it was a good reminder that “simple” on paper doesn’t always mean simple in practice. Even with the best intentions and what seems like a foolproof plan, things can get weird. It made me think about a project at an old place I worked. They wanted this very basic internal messaging tool. Super basic. It went through three different teams, countless revisions, and it never quite worked right. It was functional, kind of, but everyone knew it was ‘the Derek tool’ – you approached it with caution and low expectations.
My little venture into creating a “Derek” didn’t become legendary like that, thankfully. But it did teach me to appreciate when simple things actually turn out simple. And it showed me that sometimes, despite your best efforts, you end up with something that has a mind of its own, a bit goofy, a bit flawed, but maybe, just maybe, a little bit endearing in its own odd way. I did eventually get my program to do its one job reliably. But I swear, every now and then, I half expect it to offer me some marbles or a wind chime. You just never know with a Derek.
