Mitch Wheat - Treat the cause, not the symptoms!

Design Principles:

#1: Whenever you design anything, always do so from the user’s (consumer’s) viewpoint. If you are designing a framework, write examples of its intended usage; this will highlight any deficiencies.

#2: Encapsulate what varies. It should be possible to alter or extend the parts that vary without affecting everything else

#3: Program to an interface, rather than an implementation (i.e. exploit polymorphism). Use a factory.

#4: Favor composition over inheritance. Do not overuse inheritance; a blend of the two often works best.

#5: Don’t Repeat Yourself (DRY principle). Every fact must have a single, unambiguous, authoritative representation within a system.

#6: Aim for loosely-coupled designs between objects that interact. Low coupling and high cohesion lead to designs that are more resiliant to change.

#7: Classes should be open for extension, but closed to modification. Able to extend existing functionality without breaking existing code.

#8: Depend on abstractions, rather than concrete classes. Use a factory.

#9: Principle of least knowledge: talk only to your immediate friends. How? Only call methods on:

• The object itself
• Objects passed in as parameters to a method
• Any object instantiated by a method
• Any composite objects (Has-a)

#10: Low level components should never call into a high-level component directly.

#11: A class should have only a single reason to change (high cohesion)

#12: Raise Exceptions only in exceptional circumstances. Do not use exceptions for normal program flow.

(these are largely due to the excellent book ‘Head First Design Patterns’ by Freeman & Freeman, O’Reilly)