Galls Law

By Deane Barker •

Every complex system was once a simple system. Systems gradually get more complex over time, as we try to make them more general and able encompass more situations. Eventually a system gets too complex, so we throw it away and start over with another simple system that will gradually get more complex.

Named for John Gall, author of the seminal book “General Systematics.”

Examples

In programming, the serialization format of XML was considered too “bloated” and complex by many, who substituting a new serialization format called JSON. Over time, JSON has gotten more and more complex to solve the same general problems that caused XML to get complex.

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