Quotes About Development

would have made for a growing excitement.

Error is a hardy plant: it flourisheth in every soil.

Error is a hardy plant; it flourishes in every soil.

First, I think the science of monetary economics has clearly gotten better.

Code that communicates its purpose is very important. I often refactor just when I'm reading some code. That way as I gain understanding about the program, I embed that understanding into the code for later so I don't forget what I learned.

So, my overall advice on performance with refactoring is: Most of the time you should ignore it. If your refactoring introduces performance slow-downs, finish refactoring first and do performance tuning afterwards.

Moving state and behavior between classes is the very essence of refactoring. As the system develops, you find the need for new classes and the need to shuffle responsibilities around. A design decision that is reasonable and correct one week can become incorrect in another. That is not a problem; the only problem is not to do something about it.

It Takes Awhile to Create Nothing

Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.

A heuristic we follow is that whenever we feel the need to comment something, we write a method instead.

When you find you have to add a feature to a program, and the program's code is not structured in a convenient way to add the feature, first refactor the program to make it easy to add the feature, then add the feature.

Other than when you are very close to a deadline, however, you should not put off refactoring because you haven't got time. Experience with several projects has shown that a bout of refactoring results in increased productivity. Not having enough time usually is a sign that you need to do some refactoring.

In almost all cases, I'm opposed to setting aside time for refactoring. In my view refactoring is not an activity you set aside time to do. Refactoring is something you do all the time in little bursts.

I've found that refactoring helps me write fast software. It slows the software in the short term while I'm refactoring, but it makes the software easier to tune during optimization. I end up well ahead.

Parallel inheritance hierarchies is really a special case of shotgun surgery. In this case, every time you make a subclass of one class, you also have to make a subclass of another.

It's more than a little ironic that many of us preach safety first to our children, nieces, and nephews but in our roles as programmers scream for freedom, a hybrid of the Wild West gunslinger and teenage driver. Give us freedom, give us the resources, and watch us fly.

First Law of Distributed Object Design: Don't distribute your objects!

Notice how I'm playing the part of an enemy to code. I'm actively thinking about how I can break it. I find that state of mind to be both productive and fun. It indulges the mean-spirited part of my psyche. When you are doing tests, don't forget to check that expected errors occur properly.

Education aims to give you a boost up the ladder of knowledge. Too often, it just gives you a cramp on one of its rungs.

Diagnosis is not the end, but the beginning of practice.

Education should be exercise; it has become massage.

It is not hard to learn more. What is hard is to unlearn when you discover yourself wrong.

I find four great classes of students: The dumb who stay dumb. The dumb who become wise. The wise who go dumb. The wise who remain wise.

A recent study by two York University researchers found that Big Pharma spends nearly twice as much on promotion and advertising as it does on research and development.