Go Ahead Make a Mess

From Gogaruco 2012

Presenter: Sandi Metz

Bio

Sandi Metz has 30 years of experience working on projects that survived to grow and change. During the daytime she writes software at Duke University, in the evening, builds bicycles, and in the wee dark hours of the early morning is finishing the final chapters of the book Practical Object Oriented Design in Ruby.

Abstract

Software is always a mess. You can't avoid this mess, and if hubris goads you into attempting to achieve perfection, you'll just make things worse. Perfection is a distant, dim land on the unreachable horizon. You'll not be going there today.

What you can do, however, is use the techniques of object-oriented design (OOD) to make your messes manageable. OOD is good at messes. It understands their origins, predicts their courses, and foresees their outcomes. It shines a light down the dusty nooks and crannies of your app, showing you what to do and what to avoid.

This talk shows you how to use OOD to create the best kinds of messes, those that let you get software out the door today without regretting your actions tomorrow.

Notes from @myronmarston

• Learn to understand the mess of a code base
• The source of the problem is objects having knowledge of other objects
• Controlling dependencies requires understanding stability of bits of knowledge
• OOD helps you write code that your future self will love.
• Design lets you stop worrying and learn to love the mess.
• Omega Mess: end of line, no dependencies, no dependents
  • Hides behind a message
• It's about the message
• What is the future cost of doing nothing now?
  • If it's the same cost in the future compared to now, then wait.
• Meta Knowledge: Knowledge about Knowledge
  • The domain of design
• Preference: send a message rather than implement behavior
• "What message should I send?" -- create the object if need be

Notes from @simeonwillbanks

https://speakerdeck.com/u/skmetz/p/go-ahead-make-a-mess

Life Cycle of a Rails Project

Satisfaction == Getting stuff done
App is done and awesome
Customer asks for changes
Customer changes their mind
Now you make 50 changes
Customer asks for new feature tomorrow!
Now you hack the code into submission
You checkin code and don't want your name on it
Now you hate ruby, rails and your life
App was amazing and now its just a mess
Until you change this pattern, it will repeat

App is interwoven by knowledge

Objects have to collaborate

Objects will always have dependencies

Controlling dependencies keeps an app stable

Stability is relative

The developer is confused and we don't know enough about our app

Object Oriented Design gives us hope!

• helps you write code your future self will love
• lets you stop worrying and love mess
• keeps satisfaction high!

Object Oriented Design Examples

1. Label the Knowledge no dependants
   no dependencies
   End of the Line
   mess is completely self contained, its called an Omega Mess, huge scary method
   Omega Mess hides behind the message since its just one method

   "Its not about the code. Its about the running, living, breathing objects as the interact in memory. Its about the message."

   Knowledge Plot
   extremely helpful
   tells us how to model our knowledge
   (see slides)

   Its common to not know how stable code is.
   "What is the future cost of doing nothing now?"
   "Refactoring to simplify code is like buying a ticket in a lottery which
   is rigged in my favor."
   Its worth it to neaten the Omega Mess.

2. Complicate the Code Conditional with messes in each branch
   Not an omega mess
   A case statement caused an explosion of dependencies
   It is called Meta Knowledge

   • Knowing how a puzzle fits together
   • The domain of design

   Method is not only costly to change, but it is likely to change A number is an indicator to this problem

   Preference: "I'd rather send a message than implement behavior"
   We can remove dependencies by asking, "what message should I send?"

3. Composition Don't want to know things, we just want to ask somebody
   Don't want to know calculation, so we need to figure out message to send
   Calculations are isolated
   Make Compositions better with Convention over Configuration
   Use metaprogramming to manufacture a class
   We just made a factory!
   We love Factories - something that manufactures an object is a factory

   Composition: it does not matter what is behind the interface

Reprise

Object Oriented Design is a set tools that tells you the consequences of how you organize code

We can all learn from those who have come before

You should depend on things more stable than you are

Isolate uncertainty and arrange code so you can't see the mess

Stand on the Shoulder of Giants

The best thoughts of anyone are available to everyone

We can grow, learn and teach each other

You can never outgrow the principal of design!!!

THIS talk was really really awesome

NOTES

http://www.websequencediagrams.com/
Visual representation of knowledge and messages passed in the code