How to avoid messy code

Few programmers explicitly intend to write poorly structured source code. They don’t sit down, whip out their Bad Code Design…

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The structure of Netty

Netty‘s package structure is fantastic. Every programmer should study it; every system should mimic it; every project manager should print…

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Evidence-based principles

A previous post tried to find objective correlations1, 2 between the number of times a method was updated and its…

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Does my method look big in this?

How big is the following Java method? public Collection getDescription() { SystemLibrary systemLib = registry.get(SystemLibrary.class); Analysis analysis = systemLib.getCurrentAnalysis(registry); return…

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Is there any evidence for ripple effect?

This blog has droned on and on about ripple-effect husbandry (or lack thereof) and its determining the quality of source…

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Fundamental refactoring vs elaborative refactoring

Two types of structure Historian Benedict Anderson once wrote that, “All communities larger than primordial villages of face-to-face contact ……

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The spectacular instability of good code structure

A previous post noted that source code structure decays because there are many more ways to build a poorly structured…

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Do interfaces terminate dependencies?

Response to a response A previous post explored the relationship between transitive dependencies and abstract methods in Java programs. Jaime…

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Is your code too concrete?

A post of note Mark Tiele Westra wrote a splendid post two years ago, “The ball of mud transition,” in…

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