[harimau777]

I have a pet theory that there are two different ways that people think about and approach programs.

Group 1 likes highly decomposed programs which they feel results have clearer code since hiding the details makes it easier to focus on the behavior.

Group 2 likes to keep code together which they feel results in clearer code since the details of the implementation are readily apparent.

I suspect that these groups may correspond to the Artist versus Hacker groups in this article https://josephg.com/blog/3-tribes/. I.e. do you view writing code as primarily about expressing intent or primarily about controlling technology?

The conclusion that I draw from all of this is that these are likely fundamental differences that may even result from how different people are genetically wired to think. Therefore, I think that any solution should find a way to satisfy both groups. On the other hand, problems arise when, for example, people in group 2 dismiss the needs of people in group 1 by declaring that organizing the code is premature optimization and YAGNI.

[cjfd]

I am not so sure that pitting to tendencies against each other is such a good idea. The thing is that the good programming is somewhere in the middle of all of these things because if any of these tendencies goes too far we run into problems. I think we should all be able to belong to each of these three tribes depending on the circumstances.

[harimau777]

I definitely agree! Going too far in one direction or the other is likely to both result in poorer code and to antagonize whichever side isn't compatible with that approach.

I think what I was trying to get at is that one of the reasons that teams often don't find balance is because the differences are dismissed as being just differences of opinion. I was trying to show that they are often much more significant than that since they can make it difficult for one side or the other to understand and work with the codebase.