Subtitle: A Personal Exercise in Empirical Software Design
Recommended to me by: Liking Kent Beck’s TDD book, and this one was free at a conference
Like Test-Driven Design by Example, this book is lucidly written and carefully thought through. The first half is a series of small software refactorings called “tidyings.” The second half is about the tradeoffs between creating value now (tidy later or never) and creating options for the future (tidy first or soon, but in moderation).
The book is under 100 pages, which means it was a quick, enjoyable read, and at the same time, I’m glad I didn’t pay $40 for it.
It looks like the next book in the series will be “Tidy Together.” I look forward to reading it from the library.
Author’s website. Sadly, Kent Beck is now exploring the use of “AI” for programming. He said at the conference that he’s had to give up the pleasure of crafting a function just right, which made me sad for him. I appreciate him bringing his thoughtful approach to “AI” coding, but I wish he would Just Say No and continue to take pleasure in his craft.
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