Make change costs visible

Software architecture videos

Software architecture videos are valuable when they help you reason about a change you actually expect to make. Begin with interfaces and dependencies, then use a worked refactoring to test whether the design vocabulary improves code.

Compare a public contract with an internal structure

Bloch focuses attention on the boundary other programmers will depend on. Metz gives you a smaller piece of conditional code whose structure can be changed. Watch them as complementary scales of design, not a prescription to introduce more layers. Before refactoring, name a likely requirement change and the existing contract that must survive it; after refactoring, count the places that change rather than the new classes.

Choose a starting point

How To Design A Good API and Why it Matters

Google TechTalks

1h 1m · Uploaded 2007

Use the API-design talk when your decisions will become someone else’s contract. Existing programming experience helps you evaluate the examples against real callers.

Source video & uploader notes ↗

RailsConf 2014 - All the Little Things by Sandi Metz

Confreaks

39 min · Uploaded 2014

Use All the Little Things for a bounded refactoring case. Compare the intermediate designs instead of copying the final object structure into unrelated code.

Source video & uploader notes ↗

Questions to take into the video

What mistake can a caller make, and can the API make that mistake harder to express?
Does the proposed abstraction remove a recurring decision or merely hide the current branches behind another name?

A clean diagram cannot establish a clean dependency structure. Avoid adopting a named architecture without checking the actual cost of deployment, testing and modification.

Explore a connected subject

Testing, debugging & developer tools ↗Distributed systems ↗

Sources and selection notes

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