The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

Chapter 5Bend, or Break

Life doesn't stand still.

Neither can the code that we write. In order to keep up with today's near-frantic pace of change, we need to make every effort to write code that's as loose—as flexible—as possible. Otherwise we may find our code quickly becoming outdated, or too brittle to fix, and may ultimately be left behind in the mad dash toward the future.

In Reversibility, on page 44, we talked about the perils of irreversible decisions. In this chapter, we'll tell you how to make reversible decisions, so your code can stay flexible and adaptable in the face of an uncertain world.

First we need to look at coupling—the dependencies among modules of code. In Decoupling and the Law of Demeter we'll show how to keep separate ...