That seem to go against the definition of simple: easily understood or done; presenting no difficulty.
That's not to say there aren't any benefits to it or that developing those habits are a waste, but it's not simple. Changing existing or developing new habits is not without difficulty, it takes time, patience and perseverance.
> That seem to go against the definition of simple: easily understood or done; presenting no difficulty.
That's not a great definition of 'simple' to apply to software dev. Simple != easy, because easy is inherently about familiarity. See Rich Hickey's excellent talk on the subject [1].
That talk doesn't relate to the whole discipline of software development though. He's mostly arguing that if you chose ease over simplicity in your programming/code it can heavily effect the output of your work and its long term viability. It's about not introducing complexity in the design and your product.
But this is about the process and workflows of collaboration on code, not the code or the product itself. Some of these concepts certainly apply but just because it is in the realm of software development doesn't mean that particular definition always applies.
Hmm, not quite how I'd see it. You're right to point out different considerations are required for 'process and workflows', but I think Rich's simple/easy definitions still hold up in those situations, and are more useful than munging the two terms together.
So instead I'd say that when it comes to 'process and workflows' easiness becomes more important, because if it's an action you're literally doing everyday, you want that to be easy. In fact you might be willing to write more 'complex' underlying code/infrastructure (as we do when we setup CI) to make the process 'easy'.
That seem to go against the definition of simple: easily understood or done; presenting no difficulty.
That's not to say there aren't any benefits to it or that developing those habits are a waste, but it's not simple. Changing existing or developing new habits is not without difficulty, it takes time, patience and perseverance.