Re: [dev] Conversation with Anselm R. Garbe of suckless.org

On Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:46:35 -0700, Uriel <lost.goblin_AT_gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 3:22 PM, frederic <fdubois76_AT_gmail.com> wrote:
>> Anticipating changes in the code is a generally a bad idea, because your
>> predictions are likely to fail
>
> This can't be repeated often enough. Your predictions are not likely
> to fail, they are *bound to crumble in an epic implosion of pure
> fail*.
>
> Not falling into the pitfall of trying to anticipate future changes in
> code is surprisingly *hard*.
>
> The only way to fight against it is to keep your code as simple as
> possible, and avoid any speculative code as if it had come from
> between RMS's toes. Fortunately this turns out to be the best way to
> make code easier to change later on!
>

Or, another alternative is to use programming language constructs which help you achieve benefits of polymorphism, encapsulation and code reuse while at the same time making it easy to break / evolve the initial source code design.
Take a look at "traits", a somewhat new programming language construct recently introduced in Scala.
http://scg.unibe.ch/research/traits
Its pretty orthogonal to OO and seems to be a good alternative to inheritance for code reuse. Of course, only time and experience with the construct would tell how much of an improvement it really is.

-- 
Pinocchio