Takeaways from Kent Beck, Tidy First SubStack
Yesterday, I found the renown Kent Beck has been using a service called SubStack to build a newsletter and collate thoughts into micro-articles. They are thinking about something called "Tidy First" development. As usual, I remain insufferably interested in approaches to software development, so I decided to read what was there. Now I will attempt to relay the value I found as I wrote it in my notes.
- Try to make Patches (they say PR's), either structure or behaviour. Not both.
- Keep patches (they say PR's), small and glance able.
- Treat reversible and "irreversible" decisions differently.
- Extracting stack locals can create beneficial relationships in code. Lowering cognitive load.
- First solve "that works". If necessary, by "lumping". Then solve "clean code" by "splitting". Lump then Split.
Sadly, there were less takeaways, than posts. I Still encourage you to read the works yourself. Perhaps you are curious about some of the terminology. I am not advocating blindly following Kent advice; but it does not hurt to listen to them. You can always choose to ignore their advice.