Software Mistakes and Tradeoffs

1 Introduction

This chapter covers

• Important tradeoffs in production systems
• Consequences of unit testing versus integration testing
• Understanding that code and architecture design patterns do not fit every problem

When designing our code, APIs, and system architectures, we need to make decisions that impact maintenance, performance, extensibility, and many other factors. Almost always, the decision to go in one direction limits the possibility to evolve in a different one. The longer systems live, the harder it is to change their design and withdraw from previous decisions. The design and programming tradeoffs presented in this book focus on choosing between two or more directions in which your system can evolve. It’s important to understand ...