Before I get this little rant started I just want to make a quick apology. I started this rant on twitter regarding this blog post before I later remembered one of my colleagues had actually sent it out to me and then thinking that I should probably tone down the rhetoric. So let it be known that I’m an opinionated jerk sometimes and no one should feel the need to agree with me on anything. In fact I think it’s good when people don’t.
I did reread it a couple time now and while and found I actually don’t disagree with most of the conclusions the article made. Instead, my problem is actually that I find it’s premises are weak and in some cases misleading. My reaction was partially fuelled by the fact that this had reminded me of Joel Spolsky’s post on duct tape programmers which I also had my own opinions on. Again nothing overtly wrong with the overall message in what Joel is saying, but how he is saying it confusing and misleading. Both seem to imply that our choice is between cheap code + duct tape = shipping on the one side and over-architecture + bad use of patterns = never shipping. This seems like two extremes and I have to believe there is some solid middle ground.
One thing that bugged me about both posts is the use of self-evident claims and conclusions to make the arguments look like they make more sense. For example take this quote from Joel:
And the duct-tape programmer is not afraid to say, “multiple inheritance sucks. Stop it. Just stop.”
WTF!? Of course multiple inheritance sucks. What year did you stop writing code Joel? This has been common knowledge for quite a while now, some have even moved on to attacking inheritance in general. Is this the special quality of the duct tape programmer? An uncanny ability to make completely obvious statements seem meaningful? I digress though, this isn’t about duct tape programming it’s about cheap code so lets start with Richard’s summary. Here are the conclusions Richard makes:
- Know your design patterns and the benefits of each one of them
- Plan your code to be cheap
- Use patterns where they are going to be beneficial and will save you time
- Ignore the patterns that will not (e.g when was the last time you ported a system to a different DB?)
- Use frameworks where appropriate to speed up development;
- Refactor when required, don’t get ahead of yourself;
Abso-#$%ing-lutely! But seriously though, re-read all that one more time. All this seems to be saying to me is “only do what you need when you need it.” Well, it is pretty hard to argue with a tautology like that. Lets face it, the real problem is actually knowing what you need and what you don’t.
Richard is absolutely correct that it is more important to know when to use design patterns than how to use them (though that’s also statement I’ve seen made so many times now it’s almost a cliché). The question is how do we learn when and when not to use patterns. Just as important is how do we know how much refactoring is required and how do we safely plan our code to be cheap without risking it becoming a mess of spaghetti code?
I’m going to let everyone in on a very big secret. Something that the most secretive societies of computer science have kept carefully concealed only practiced during private ceremonies and never taught to the uninitiated. I will probably be dead by tomorrow but I feel the people need to know.
TDD
There I said the words, test. driven. design.
What I find disappointing about Richard’s (and Joel’s) post is not that his conclusions are wrong, they are all right and good, but that he provides little or no guidance on one gets there from here. To that I say one shorter answer is TDD.
It is a well known fact that you are going to write bad code, I am going to write bad code, Richard (I presume) is going to write bad code, bad code happens every day. This, is the reason we refactor. However, refactoring itself implies change and change has some amount of inherent risk. The more complex our code becomes the riskier it is and without any tests covering what we’ve done the long term product will end up being a big ball of legacy mud no one wants to refactor or improve in no time.
After this point all anyone is comfortable doing is patching up the code with cheap hacks and tricks that appear to work, but probably leave many hidden bugs and problems that build up over time until our whole house of “cheap code” falls in on itself.
Does this sound familiar to anyone? Of course it does, we’ve all seen, worked on, probably even helped to build legacy code projects and we all know where they end up in time. It is testing that gives us the ability to refactor fearlessly, to change, improve and fix our cheap code strengthening and shoring it up to carry the next features when they are asked for.
Reversibility
Richard suggest we should plan for cheap code. Well how do we do that? In a word: reversibility. We always know more about what is needed near the end of the project than at the beginning and this is why reversibility is important.
We want the freedom to change our minds and do so inexpensively. Reversibility is our ability to make mistakes, take the wrong path and then change our minds later. If you are planning for cheap code then it’s an absolute must you are building for reversibility. However reversible code is not nearly as cheap as plain old cheap code. Reversible code requires us to follow certain guiding principles and even potentially apply some patterns to reduce coupling, increase cohesion and avoid accidental complexity down the road.
So how do we write reversible code? Well unit tests are important for a start, but we already talked about that. The rest comes down to sufficient architectural planning (as opposed to none) and understanding and applying good principles of design. Principles are more important than patterns on any given day.
SOLID
Faster than a speeding flywheel, more powerful than an abstract factory and able to leap tall singletons in a single bound, yes principles are far more valuable than patterns because it is principles that guide us and help us to decide when patterns are needed. Patterns are merely the tools, principles represent the most valuable knowledge.
One final thing…
In the end I just don’t feel that terms like “cheap” and “duct tape” are good when used as advice on how to create software. I prefer “clean” myself. Of course, we should strive to be minimalists, adhere to YAGNI and always avoid over architecture. Our code should be as cheap as possible, but no cheaper.
That being said, truly cheap code (no TDD, zero real architecture planning, quick and dirty, etc.) can still be useful. It can help you when testing assumptions or even building a minimal viable product. However, if you plan and need to use cheap code then treat it as a prototype, and by that I mean you plan to really throw it away. Truly cheap code has an expiry date, and it’s usually the next minute after version 1 ships, after that it’s time to rebuild it with some clean code and a bit of planning and design.
Reference: We’re All Out of Duct Tape, Try Putting Some Cheap Code on It from our NCG partner Chris Nicola at the lucisferre blog.
