6. Development

Working software over comprehensive documentation.

—The Agile Manifesto1

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Figure 6.1. Newton’s Cradle is a common desktop toy. When you apply force from one end, the balls swing in a predictable, regular motion. When you add a force from the opposite end, the balls start bouncing chaotically against each other. It is a metaphor for development practice. Simple, directional force encourages predictability, whereas contradictory forces can create chaos.

This chapter is not about programming languages or design patterns. These important topics are well covered in many other books. Instead, this chapter is about getting that code into ...

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