Tidy First?

Preface

What Is Tidy First?

“I have to change this code, but it’s messy. What should I do first?”

“Maybe I should tidy the code before I make the change. Maybe. Some. Or maybe not?”

These are questions you might ask yourself, and if there were easy answers, I wouldn’t have felt the need to write a book to address them.

Tidy First? describes:

• When to tidy messy code before changing what it computes

• How to tidy messy code safely and efficiently

• How to stop tidying messy code

• Why tidying works

Software design is an exercise in human relationships. In Tidy First? we start with the proverbial person in the mirror—​with the programmer’s relationship with themself. Why don’t we take time to care for ourselves? Take time to make our work easier? Why do we go down the rabbit hole of cleaning code to the exclusion of work that would help our users?

Tidy First? is the next step in my mission to help geeks feel safe in the world. It’s also the first step to take when faced with messy code. Software design is a powerful tool to ease pain in the world—​if it is used well. Used badly, it becomes just another instrument of oppression, and a drag on the effectiveness of software development.

Tidy First? focuses on software design. I want to make software design approachable and valued, so I’m starting with the kind of software design you can do on your own. Subsequent volumes will apply software design to heal relationships between the programmers on a team, and then address the biggie: ...