C++ Software Design

Chapter 11. The Last Guideline

There is only one more guideline, one more piece of advice that I can bestow upon you. So here it is: the last guideline.

Guideline 39: Continue to Learn About Design Patterns

“That’s it? This is all you’ve got? Come on, there are so many more design patterns out there. We barely touched the surface!” you say. Well, honestly, you are completely correct; there is nothing I can add to that. But in my defense, I was planning for many more patterns until reality struck me: there is only so much information that you can fit into a book with 400 pages. But don’t fret: in these 400 pages I’ve taken you on a journey through the most important pieces of advice for any design that you will need anywhere, anytime in your software development career:

Minimize dependencies

Dealing with dependencies is the core of software design. And whatever kind of software you write, if you are seriously interested in making it last, you will have to deal with dependencies: the necessary ones, but primarily the artificial ones. Of course, your major goal is to reduce dependencies and hopefully even minimize them. To achieve this goal, you will inevitably deal with design patterns.

Separate concerns

This may be the most important, central design guideline that you can take away from this book. Separate concerns and your software structures will detangle and become easier to understand, change, and test. All design patterns, without exception, provide you with some way ...