Value Objects for the Win!
Jun 15 2025Value Objects solve the primitive obsession problem by encapsulating data, validation, and behavior in a single unit. Stop scattering domain logic and start creating more cohesive, maintainable code.
Lifespan Strategies
Jun 14 2025Mutability × Time: The Compound Risk series.
Proven techniques for containing the compound risk of mutable state over time. From theoretical patterns to a successful real-world refactoring that eliminated invisible coupling.
Invisible Coupling
Jun 14 2025Mutability × Time: The Compound Risk series.
Why components become secretly coupled through shared mutable state. Examines how invisible dependencies erode trust and create debugging nightmares separated by both code and time.
The Mutation Timeline
Jun 14 2025Mutability × Time: The Compound Risk series.
The anatomy of object decay over time. Examines how instances progress through Birth, Initialization, Drift, Contamination, and Corruption—and why each stage compounds the previous problems.
The Lifespan Paradox
Jun 14 2025Mutability × Time: The Compound Risk series.
Why longer-lived mutable instances become exponentially more dangerous over time. Explores the counterintuitive relationship between object longevity and system reliability through a real-world state management failure.
A philosophy of software design - John Ousterhout
May 1 2025I read A Philosophy of Software Design about 18 months back. It's a well-structured, concise read about managing complexity in software design. I don't think the suggested approaches are applicable in all situations (and John Ousterhout says this himself IIRC), but I recognised a lot of the problems described in the book and found it provided some useful ways to articulate concepts during code reviews (eg. whether adding a shallow function is increasing complexity in a codebase, if complexity can be pulled down into an implementation, or where it's useful to have consistency in the code).
Design Discovery In Existing Systems
Feb 18 2025We all want the best design but often that is not directly obtainable. Our tools for understanding systems behaviour may lead us to the abstractions we would want to use in a rewrite but what about the abstractions that exist in the system now? Do they matter? What about the structure? Are there unnamed concepts we can see through the current cohesion and coupling in the system that will help us get to where we need to go? In this talk, Michael Feathers will describe cases where being aware of what currently exists leads to better solutions. We can often leverage what we have instead of building up a domain from a greenfield.
Shades of Conway's Law
Oct 14 2024In short, Conway's Law says any organisation that designs a system will come up with a system design that copies the organisational communication structures. Over the years, many individuals rephrased Conway's Law in various ways. Every paraphrase brings new insights and non-negligible consequences. Sometimes they give the impression of contradicting each other. However, in the end, they all come to the same conclusion. The organisation and the system keep each other in balance. Modifying the organisation will have an impact on the system. Modifying the system will have an impact on the organisation. Not considering that will cause friction in the organisation or the system with dramatic consequences. To be competitive as an organisation in the market, and to effectively design the right thing our customers expect us to deliver, we'd better understand and take advantage of this. About Thierry de Pauw: Thierry is a lean IT Engineer at the fintech startup Abbove. On the side, he founded ThinkingLabs, an advisory firm for optimising IT delivery while reducing stress, burnout and fatigue. From time to time he is asked to conduct technology due diligence for investors to review the technology capabilities of organisations. Thierry is a CI/CD advocate and jack-of-all-trades. Instead of balancing quality & delivery, he believes and practices that better quality is actually a way to more and better deliveries.
Visual Agility: Why We Model
Jul 19 2024Design of complex systems is hard -- wickedly hard! It takes all the cognitive assist we can muster. Trade-offs must be made because there is interaction -- not just interaction among components to create a capability, but interaction among properties. And interaction between the system and its users and containing systems(-of-systems). And more! These systems are evolving -- the more agile, the more we try to take this co-evolution, this learning across boundaries, this symmathesy, into account.
Design Principles Behind Smalltalk
Jan 2 2024The purpose of the Smalltalk project is to provide computer support for the creative spirit in everyone. Our work flows from a vision that includes a creative individual and the best computing hardware available. We have chosen to concentrate on two principle areas of research: a language of description (programming language) that serves as an interface between the models in the human mind and those in computing hardware, and a language of interaction (user interface) that matches the human communication system to that of the computer. Our work has followed a two- to four-year cycle that can be seen to parallel the scientific method: Build an application program within the current system (make an observation) Based on that experience, redesign the language (formulate a theory) Build a new system based on the new design (make a prediction that can be tested) The Smalltalk-80 system marks our fifth time through this cycle. In this article, I present some of the general principles we have observed in the course of our work. While the presentation frequently touches on Smalltalk "motherhood", the principles themselves are more general and should prove useful in evaluating other systems and in guiding future work.
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