Jeremy D. Miller -- The Shade Tree Developer

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Jeremy D. Miller -- The Shade Tree Developer » Observations
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Observations
  • Developers abhor a clean whiteboard
  • All code base's want to have an ICommand abstraction of some sort
  • Sooner or later, a project called TestHarness will appear in your source tree
  • There will be at least one "The Great Refactoring" episode on the project that you will hence use to date episodes from the project.  BDUF all you want, YAGNI all you want, it's still gonna happen.  If it doesn't, then your code probably sucks.
  • At least one grand sounding design idea will generate excitement only to lead to abject failure and disappointment
  • At some point you will look at a grand design and suddenly realize a much simpler way to achieve the same goal -- but it's too late
  • You'll do at least one refactoring that makes you walk away and say "I wish we'd done that sooner"
  • You'll do at least one refactoring that makes you walk away and say "Man, I'm glad we did that"
  • You will look back at 6 month old code and groan in utter frustration at your lack of ability
  • Design strategies that worked well on one project can easily flop on the next project
Posted 03-13-2008 2:36 PM by Jeremy D. Miller

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Comments

Rob wrote re: Observations
on 03-13-2008 5:31 PM

dude...you are so right on.

josh wrote re: Observations
on 03-13-2008 5:32 PM

had to laugh at the TestHarness project observation.

James Avery wrote re: Observations
on 03-13-2008 5:34 PM

Don't forget:

You will attempt a huge refactoring at one point, spend hours or days on it, then realize it is pure folly and thank god for source control.

Derik Whittaker wrote re: Observations
on 03-13-2008 6:20 PM

Excellent post Jeremy.  

Simply yet elegant.

Anders Norås wrote re: Observations
on 03-13-2008 6:42 PM

Spot on!

Nick Parker wrote re: Observations
on 03-13-2008 8:35 PM

Clean whiteboards - we just got two 6 foot by 8 foot white boards delivered this week - sadly one is still clean.

Robz wrote re: Observations
on 03-13-2008 11:28 PM

I love whiteboards.  I love to draw!

Give me the marker, give me the marker! :D

Chad Myers wrote re: Observations
on 03-14-2008 12:57 AM

The set of markers we have for our board has a white dry erase marker.  We're still scratching our heads over that one.

Symon Rottem wrote re: Observations
on 03-14-2008 4:39 AM

Oh man - I think you just summed up my whole life...

Rory Becker wrote re: Observations
on 03-14-2008 4:39 AM

Clean whiteboard = Open invitation.

A flawless set of observations :)

Dew Drop - March 14, 2008 | Alvin Ashcraft's Morning Dew wrote Dew Drop - March 14, 2008 | Alvin Ashcraft's Morning Dew
on 03-14-2008 9:34 AM

Pingback from  Dew Drop - March 14, 2008 | Alvin Ashcraft's Morning Dew

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