I’ve been creating software program for a few years now. A long time. I’ve discovered quite a bit alongside the best way, and I dare to suppose that I’ve collected some knowledge about software program improvement value sharing with others. Sooner or later, you suppose “Yeah, I’ve obtained a grip on this factor.”
And each now and again, you could have some revelation that’s the end result of what you’ve discovered alongside the best way. I’ll always remember the second I understood dependency injection. Of course you’d need to go in an abstraction quite than create an implementation!
I had the same revelation this week. I’m positive there are many sager builders amongst you who’ve already figured this out, but it surely struck me all of the sudden that actually good software program design is all about protecting your choices open for so long as attainable—that you must defer any choices to the final minute.
Now, this appears counter-intuitive. We’ve all the time been advised to plan all the pieces out forward of time. That we shouldn’t begin the challenge with out having thought of each element that may be thought of. That we have to determine it out now so there are not any surprises.
I can simply think about the dialog:
Engineering director: “How’s the planning occurring the brand new challenge?”
Improvement lead: “Nice, we’re able to get began.”
Engineering director: “What database did you decide?”
Improvement lead: “Haven’t determined but.”
Engineering director: “Authentication?”
Improvement lead: “Not but.”
Engineering director: “Wait… what?!”