When Cleverness Becomes a Trap

A Tale of Overengineering in Programming

The Task: Create Forms for Vue Components

I was tasked with creating property-editing forms for 25-ish Vue components that we shipped as part of a library. Straightforward, right? Each component needed a form—just a typical, albeit repetitive, developer chore. I could’ve simply built 25 individual Vue forms, one for each component, and moved on. But no, that didn’t sit well with my "I can optimize this" mindset.

The Spark of an Idea

Instead of slogging through mundane form creation, I decided to build something smarter—a form generator. Inspired by Zod’s declarative syntax, I envisioned a highly reusable, reactive framework. It would allow me to define forms using schemas, automatically handle validation, and abstract away the repetitive drudgery. Enter DeepForm, my custom form-generation framework.

DeepForm Usage Example

<template>
  <DeepForm v-bind="form().props" class="v-col-md-6" />

  <v-divider />

  valid = {{ valid }}, value = {{ value }}
</template>

<script setup lang="ts">
import { useDeef, DeepForm } from '@/projects/deep-form/useDeef';

const { s, form, value, valid } = useDeef({
  text: 'Vuetify v-text out of the box, mandatory',
  bool: false,
});

s.add('text').input('vtext').mandatory();
s.add('bool').input('boolean').title('Boolean input');


</script>

At first glance, it looks impressive. With just a few lines, I could declare dynamic forms with reusable inputs, asynchronous data sources, and validations.

The Reality Check

Fast forward a month. I needed to create a new form. But as I opened the DeepForm documentation, I realized I had created a monster. The framework was so abstract, with so many hidden dependencies and inherited behaviors, that even I, its creator, struggled to remember how it worked.

The Problems

Overabstraction: Eventually, DeepForm tried to solve every possible edge case and handle every conceivable input type. It became bloated and hard to navigate. Inputs dependent on each other, had their logic. Input and output converters. Arrays, arrays of objects. Array of array of objects. It all worked. But it was unusable syntax-wise.

Steep Learning Curve: The syntax was declarative, but not intuitive. Even the simplest forms required understanding several layers of abstractions, like schema, input, form, input parameters.
Maintenance Nightmares: Debugging issues in forms created with DeepForm was excruciating. Tracing how a property got processed involved jumping between multiple files and figuring out the interplay of converters, validators, and schema items.

Time Sink: What should’ve been a week-long task turned into a month-long journey, and even then, the solution wasn’t practical for long-term use.

Lessons Learned

Start Simple: Not every problem needs a framework or an abstraction. Sometimes, brute-forcing the solution with repetition is faster, clearer, and easier to maintain.

Optimize for Future You: If you need a manual to remember how your code works, it’s a red flag. Future you—or anyone inheriting your code—will thank you for keeping things straightforward.

Abstraction ≠ Productivity: Abstractions should reduce complexity, not add to it. If your abstraction introduces more layers of indirection than the original problem, rethink it.

Be Wary of Premature Generalization: I built DeepForm to handle every possible form scenario we might encounter, but in reality, most of our forms were far simpler. Build for the problems you know exist, not the ones you think might exist someday.

Conclusion
As one respectful YouTuber, Primeagen, once said:

“If after some time you find yourself struggling with simple tasks in the code you are working on—that means you have been too smart in the beginning.”

DeepForm was a humbling experience, a reminder that cleverness for its own sake often backfires. Now, whenever I feel the urge to overengineer, I take a step back and ask myself: “Am I solving the problem or just flexing my brain?”

Have you ever fallen into the overengineering trap? I’d love to hear your stories in the comments—or let’s chat about them live in a video. Maybe we can all learn from each other’s mistakes before we create the next DeepForm!

See Library in Action