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Occam's razor
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=== Software development === In software development, the [[rule of least power]] argues the correct [[programming language]] to use is the one that is simplest while also solving the targeted software problem. In that form the rule is often credited to [[Tim Berners-Lee]] since it appeared in his design guidelines for the original [[Hypertext Transfer Protocol]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Principles.html |first=Tim |last=Berners-Lee |author-link=Tim Berners-Lee |date=4 March 2013 |title=Principles of Design |website=[[World Wide Web Consortium]] |access-date=5 June 2022 |archive-date=15 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220615065514/https://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Principles.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Complexity in this context is measured either by placing a language into the [[Chomsky hierarchy]] or by listing idiomatic features of the language and comparing according to some agreed to scale of difficulties between idioms. Many languages once thought to be of lower complexity have evolved or later been discovered to be more complex than originally intended; so, in practice this rule is applied to the relative ease of a programmer to obtain the power of the language, rather than the precise theoretical limits of the language.
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