john coder

Everyone has acronyms, mnemonic devices, and lists of rules to describe everything they find important in software development. In order to get the most out of these rules, I need a reminder somewhere. This post is mostly a reminder for myself.

A recent episode of Herding Code featured Corey Haines, discussing Coderetreats among other topics. While talking about this, he mentioned an emphasis on the "4 Rules of Simple Design" during the Coderetreat sessions. He didn't go into it on the podcast, so I ended up doing some research to figure out exactly what those four rules were. It did not take long to find, but here's a bullet point summary (taken from this post):

• Tests tell you if you broke something.
• No duplication allows you to make a change in one place for all pieces of knowledge in your system.
• Good names allow you to easily understand the structure of your design and where you should make your change.
• Small helps keep your head above water when looking through the system.

You can find these rules and more at the Coderetreat blog.