Skip to Main Content
Prefactoring
book

Prefactoring

by Ken Pugh
September 2005
Intermediate to advanced content levelIntermediate to advanced
240 pages
6h 28m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Prefactoring

3.1. Start with the Big Picture

The big picture refers to the broad perspective of a system in development. The big picture includes the system's overall architecture and business purpose.

Most successful systems have a single vision of the architecture. The vision can come from group consensus or from a single respected individual. Design decisions within a system should be consistent with that architecture.[*]

[*] For more information, see "The Third Principle: Maintain the Vision" by David Hooker at http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SevenPrinciplesOfSoftwareDevelopment.

As Tim and I develop Sam's system, we will keep in mind that its ultimate goal is to function as a multistore system. As the individual pieces of the initial system are developed, the choice between the various design approaches will be affected by that business purpose.

Sam's system is being created in an entirely new environment. Any components that we create (classes, display widgets, etc.) are going to be used in that context. If we attempt to develop components in a vacuum (e.g., without reference to their use), we might have a lot of vacuuming to do when we are finished.

For example, we are developing a new Customer class. Its purpose and interface are driven by its representation as someone to whom Sam rents a CD. An attempt to make the class more general (e.g., so that it can represent a purchaser of CDDiscs) not only would be unnecessary, but also would complicate its required purpose.

On the other hand, much software ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Start your free trial

You might also like

Understanding Unittest.Mock

Understanding Unittest.Mock

Mario Corchero
Java™ Performance

Java™ Performance

Charlie Hunt, Binu John

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 0596008740Supplemental ContentCatalog PageErrata