improving-complexity-surface

Categorize complexity as essential domain requirements versus accidental implementation artifacts to avoid simplifications that break systems. Use when: (1) asked to simplify code without first distinguishing which complexity serves genuine domain requirements, (2) proposed simplification includes "just" or "simply" without analysis of what would be lost or relocated, (3) evaluating abstractions that unify disparate concepts without examining whether the domain differences matter, (4) unable to articulate which complexity reflects inherent problem difficulty versus implementation choices