A few months ago, I believed one thing:
The more features my software had, the better it would become.
Every new idea sounded amazing.
"Let's add this."
"Let's add another security option."
"One more button won't hurt."
I thought users would see more features and think:
"Wow, this software does everything!"
Instead, I created something far more complicated than it needed to be.
The Illusion of Progress
As developers, adding features feels productive.
Deleting them feels like failure.
But they're not the same thing.
Every feature introduces:
More code to maintain
More bugs to fix
More edge cases to test
More UI decisions
More opportunities for users to get confused
I slowly realized I wasn't building a better application.
I was building a more complicated one.
The Advice That Changed My Perspective
One conversation on Dev.to made me stop and rethink my approach.
A Guy named Mustafa ERBAY gave me advice that sounded simple, but completely changed how I look at software.
The message wasn't:
"Build more."
It was closer to:
"Build what actually matters."
That made me question every feature inside my own project.
So I Started Removing Things
Instead of asking:
"What else can I add?"
I started asking:
"What can I remove without reducing the value?"
Surprisingly, that question improved my project more than any new feature ever did.
Some features disappeared completely.
Others were redesigned from scratch.
The result wasn't a smaller application.
It was a cleaner one.
Good Software Isn't a Feature Checklist
I've learned that users rarely care how many features your software has.
They care about whether it solves their problem.
Ten well-designed features are often better than fifty average ones.
Quality scales.
Complexity does too.
The difference is that only one of them makes users happy.
More Features
≠
More Value
More Clarity
=
Better Software
Building ATLOCK Changed My Thinking
While working on ATLOCK, I kept discovering features that sounded impressive but didn't genuinely improve the user experience.
Some of them never made it into the final version.
Others were completely redesigned.
Looking back, I'm glad they were.
The application became easier to understand, easier to maintain, and—most importantly—more focused on solving real problems instead of collecting features.
My New Rule
Whenever I think of adding a new feature, I ask myself three questions:
Does this solve a real problem?
Will most users actually use it?
Does it make the software simpler or more complicated?
If I can't confidently answer those questions...
It probably doesn't belong.
The biggest lesson I've learned as a developer isn't how to write more code.
It's knowing when not to write it.
A huge thank you to Mustafa EBRAY for sharing advice that pushed me to rethink my approach to software development.
Sometimes one thoughtful comment changes your engineering mindset more than a hundred tutorials ever could.
What's one piece of programming advice that completely changed the way you build software?
Try ATLOCK now: https://github.com/Akhouri-Anmol-Kumar/ATLOCK
Download Directly ATLOCK in one click: https://github.com/Akhouri-Anmol-Kumar/ATLOCK/releases/download/v4.0/ATLOCK.zip
"We Build What Others Forgot To Fix"
Top comments (4)
You know what, I'm currently reading this book called "I Will Teach You to be Rich" by Ramit Sethi and it has this topic that's similar to this. When a person is given too many choices, they end up not choosing at all. It's either they are confused, they are paralyzed, or they are afraid that their decision would be wrong.
It's the same as this one. Personally, if a software has too many buttons, I will be more wary on what to click so as not to change the default settings. If it gets too complex and it's not doing what I originally want fast enough, I will leave it and find a more streamlined software that does the same thing. That's why minimal features but useful ones are better than multiple annoying ones. It keeps the focus of the users and makes them come back and use it when needed again. Think of VLC, WinRAR, and other great open source software. They are still here for a reason.
That's a really good point, and I completely agree.
I think I fell into the classic "more features = more value" trap when I first started building ATLOCK. Every new idea sounded useful, but I eventually realised that every feature also adds complexity—for both the developer and the user.
Your examples of VLC and WinRAR are spot on. They don't try to do everything; they do a few things exceptionally well, and that's probably why they've remained relevant for so many years.
Going forward, one of my goals for ATLOCK is to make every feature justify its existence. If a feature doesn't solve a real problem or makes the software harder to use, I'd rather redesign it or remove it than keep it just because it looks impressive.
Thanks for sharing your perspective—and I'll definitely add I Will Teach You to Be Rich to my reading list. 📚
The moment you realize that less is more — that's when you level up.👍️
Thanks.