Most over engineered solution EVER…

I recently saw this “ah hem” challenge posted on X:

What is the most overengineered library/tool/framework/environment that you ever used at work? —Mario Fusco

I looked no further than my own coding experience to fine an answer

Early in my career I had read GoF Design Patterns.

It was read like magic! So naturally I had to use those patterns. I was that impressed by those incarnations of OOP.

So in my next project, a small one with few fellow teammates, I began using that.

All of them.

My solution was probably triple what it really needed to be.

And there was really no one there to tell me that what I’d built was ridiculous.

Later on when the anti-pattern movement arose and book after was published, I realized what a foolish decision that had been.

I have since become a bigger fan of “The Poutsma Principle”.

A tongue in cheek idea, it says that if Arjen Poutsma (creator of Spring @MVC and RestTemplate among others the things) doesn’t understand what you wrote, you’re probably wrong.

A more serious phrasing is to not do “cute” stuff but instead strive to make things as simple and straight forward as…