We determine, via classroom proofs, the maximal ideal space, the Bass stable rank as well as the topological and dense stable rank of the uniform closure of all complex-valued functions continuously differentiable on neighborhoods of a compact planar set 𝐾 and holomorphic in the interior 𝐾∘ of 𝐾. In this spirit, we also give elementary approaches to the calculation of these stable ranks for some classical function algebras on 𝐾.