Programming Beyond Practices

1. Using Prototypes to Explore Project Ideas
-Start by understanding the needs behind the project
-Use wireframes to set expectations about functionality
-Set up a live test system as soon as you start coding
-Discuss all defects, but be pragmatic about repairs
-Check your assumptions early and often
-Limit the scope of your work as much as possible
-Remember that prototypes are not production systems
-Design features that make collecting feedback easy

2. Spotting Hidden Dependencies in Incremental Changes
-There’s no such thing as a standalone feature
-If two features share a screen, they depend on each other
-Avoid non-essential real-time data synchronization
-Look for problems when code is reused in a new context

3. Identifying the Pain Points of Service Integrations
-Plan for trouble when your needs are off the beaten path
-Remember that external services might change or die
-Look for outdated mocks in tests when services change
-Expect maintenance headaches from poorly coded robots
-Remember that there are no purely internal concerns

4. Developing a Rigorous Approach Toward Problem Solving
-Begin by gathering the facts and stating them plainly
-Work part of the problem by hand before writing code
-Validate your input data before attempting to process it
-Make use of deductive reasoning to check your work
-Solve simple problems to understand more difficult ones

5. Designing Software from the Bottom Up
-Identify the nouns and verbs of your problem space
-Begin by implementing a minimal slice of functionality
-Avoid unnecessary temporal coupling between objects
-Gradually extract reusable parts and protocols
-Experiment freely to discover hidden abstractions
-Know where the bottom-up approach breaks down

6. Data Modeling in an Imperfect World
-Decouple conceptual modeling from physical modeling
-Design an explicit model for tracking data changes
-Understand how Conway’s Law influences data management practices
-Remember that workflow design and data modeling go hand in hand

7. Gradual Process Improvement as an Antidote for Overcommitment
-Respond to unexpected failures with swiftness and safety
-Identify and analyze operational bottlenecks
-Pay attention to the economic tradeoffs of your work
-Reduce waste by limiting work in progress
-Make the whole greater than the sum of its parts

8. The Future of Software Development