I’ve been reading “Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship” by Robert Martin. This is no ordinary book on writing better software. It’s not just a rehash of “Code Complete” or “The Pragmatic Programmer.” Those are both fine books, but “Clean Code” is different. So, please don’t think that if [...]
Mid last year, Kurt Williams wrote “Beware of Simplicity” [jroller.com/page/cardsharp?entry=beware_simple_frameworks] in development frameworks. According to him, new and fresh frameworks can only claim to be simple because they are immature. All frameworks are doomed to growing more complex as they grow in features. I can’t argue with that. It seems to me, therefore, that the best frameworks are the ones that do the best job of hiding that complexity — either because of the innate architecture of the framework, or by virtue of the tools and practices that deal with the complexity for you. A framework can have all of the under-the-hood complexity it needs. It’s the day-to-day, in-your-face complexity that I care about.
In the field of cognitive psychology there’s this so-called “Magic Number 7.” Basically, the idea is that humans can only keep 7 disjointed “things”, plus or minus two, in short-term memory at once. To see what I mean, study the following list of words for a minute. Then, turn away and write down as many as you can from memory:
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