Perceived Software Complexity ∞
You have a task which starts off seeming simple, then upon further thought and exploration it becomes considerably more complex (with several nebulous unanswered questions). Then, upon still further examination, it becomes clear that the level of refinement of thought has lead to discovering once again that the problem is simpler than it seemed to be.
I recently stumbled across this great piece from 2010 by Matt Gemmell and couldn’t help but nod positively at each sentence.