[whytheplatypus]

Couldn't agree with this more.

A current favorite of mine is "The Emperor's old cloths", the Turing award lecture given by C.A.R Hoare. In particular his line "The price of reliability is the pursuit of the utmost simplicity", it applies equally to maintainability and extensibility (I think these are part of what it means for a system to be reliable).

An idea I try to keep in mind while working is not to plan or build for future features but simply leave room for them (meaning don't actively prevent their eventual existence through complexity). It has taken some practice, but it helps guide to a simpler implementation.

[kqr]

> maintainability and extensibility (I think these are part of what it means for a system to be reliable).

Frequently forgotten is the duality of extensibility: subsettability, or contraction. Being able to remove or disable code without rewriting large parts of the application is just as important as being able to extend it!

[whytheplatypus]

yes!

[CuriousSkeptic]

This. So much this!

Especially Microsoft has a tendency to throw out frameworks and helpers that just don’t provide the needed flexibility, and once that has been addressed what’s left is a heap of extensibility points that wrap three lines of useful logic in hundreds of lines of framework code.

So if I could ask one thing of platform developers it is to leave the framework design to the user, and just provide useful primitives. The two hours spent on writing the extra glue code is easily saved on the days spent trying to learn the framework.

[teknopaul]

Thats a gem: "is there room for features" is going on my personal code review checklist. Right after "you arn't going to need it".

[ngneer]

And security!