Since we mentioned lately we should start the queste for simplicity, I just wanted to share where I get my inspiration from

• For one: "Shaving helps": Ockham's Razor
• And often used in software mids: The 'Principle of Least Astonishment'!

Hey, Wikipedia links them too, plus making the great re-wording to 'principle of maximum boredom' - LOL

In any case to me it means: reduce the amount of 'arbitrary complexity' as Frederick P. Brooks Jr. defines it in his classic No Silver Bullet. (That and more goods by the way in his must-read: "The mythical Man-month: Essays on Software Engineering")

One practical way of getting to it is for sure to reduce the size of your public interface. Hide behind that Facade, reduce the number of verbs, and achieve the lowest SURFACE-TO-VOLUME Ratio (as explained in the Selfish Class) you can.

In fact it has lead me to the rule of the billiard balls: the contact-surface between your implementation classes should be likethe one between billiard balls: points, and not the big, even concave surfaces of two sponges hitting each other... "Let your classes be billiard balls!"

So, yeah, we could all get bored to death, but I would somewhat rate it higher then getting mad of frustration on the where?, what? why? of the next API to grasp.

11:24:16 PM    

Just had to link up this, for a friend with a particluar fondness of NPE's.

1:39:52 PM