Understanding the Four Rules of Simple Design (The Book, Single Copy License)
Understanding the Four Rules of Simple Design
and other lessons from watching thousands of pairs work on Conway's Game of Life
About the Book
Check out some feedback from readers.
Modern software development is a game of ever-increasing frequency of change. This is why it is imperative to build systems that are flexible and can adapt to changing requirements, both expected and (more often) unexpected. That is why I've written this book.
From 2009 to 2014, I traveled the world working with software developers, both individually and in teams, to improve their craft. Primarily, I did this through a training workshop format called coderetreat. Over those years, I had the opportunity to watch 1000's of pairs of programmers work on exactly the same system, Conway's Game of Life. As time progressed, I began to see patterns arise. I noticed common techniques and designs that spanned languages and companies and crossed national borders.
As co-founder and a facilitator of coderetreat workshops, I had the unique opportunity to provide feedback, both direct and through questions, on improving the act of writing adaptable, simple code. Through the day, we worked on improving our ability to make good choices around the minute-by-minute decisions made while writing code.
This book is about those things I learned from watching these 1000's of pairs working on the same problem. It contains a large part of the feedback that I provide during a typical coderetreat. The primary focus is on the thought process behind refactoring, and how that is influenced by the 4 rules of simple design.
This book is not about Conway's Game of Life. Instead, it uses its domain as a backdrop to discuss the thoughts and ideas behind the 4 rules of simple design. It focuses on the small decisions made while designing your code with the goal of building robust, adaptable codebases that can stand the test of time.
With forewords by Joe Rainsberger and Kent Beck.
Curious what the book is like?
I've put together a free downloadable sample of the book with one of the examples (having test names influence the api) and a section on the ping-pong pair-programming style.
Packages
The Book, Single Copy License
PDF
EPUB
WEB
English
The Book, 10-Copy License
Use this to purchase a licenses for 10 copies of the book at a discounted rate! Great for classes, workshops and companies.
PDF
EPUB
WEB
English
The Book, 50-Copy License
PDF
EPUB
WEB
English
Bundles that include this book
Table of Contents
-
- Foreword: Kent Beck
- Foreword: Joe Rainsberger
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
-
This Book
- Who It Is For
- What It Is (And Isn’t) About
- Format
- Why Ruby?
-
Where do these thoughts come from?
-
- Good Design?
- Coderetreats
- Conway’s Game of Life
- 4 Rules of Simple Design
-
-
Examples
-
- Test Names Should Influence Object’s API
- Duplication of Knowledge about Topology
- Behavior Attractors
- Testing State vs Testing Behavior
- Don’t Have Tests Depend on Previous Tests
- Breaking Abstraction Level
- Naive Duplication
- Procedural Polymorphism
- Making Assumptions About Usage
- Unwrapping an Object
- Inverted Composition as a Replacement for Inheritance
-
-
Other Good Stuff
- Other Design Guidelines
- Example constraints
-
Some Thoughts On Pair-Programming Styles
- Driver-Navigator
- Ping-Pong Pairing
- Which Style Should You Choose?
-
Further Reading
- 4 Rules of Simple Design
- General Design
- Testing
- Other Things You Probably Should Most Definitely Read
The Leanpub 60-day 100% Happiness Guarantee
Within 60 days of purchase you can get a 100% refund on any Leanpub purchase, in two clicks.
See full terms
Do Well. Do Good.
Authors have earned$11,817,855writing, publishing and selling on Leanpub, earning 80% royalties while saving up to 25 million pounds of CO2 and up to 46,000 trees.
Learn more about writing on Leanpub
Free Updates. DRM Free.
If you buy a Leanpub book, you get free updates for as long as the author updates the book! Many authors use Leanpub to publish their books in-progress, while they are writing them. All readers get free updates, regardless of when they bought the book or how much they paid (including free).
Most Leanpub books are available in PDF (for computers) and EPUB (for phones, tablets and Kindle). The formats that a book includes are shown at the top right corner of this page.
Finally, Leanpub books don't have any DRM copy-protection nonsense, so you can easily read them on any supported device.
Learn more about Leanpub's ebook formats and where to read them
Top Books
Stratospheric
Tom Hombergs, Björn Wilmsmann, and Philip RiecksFrom Zero to Production with Spring Boot and AWS. All you need to know to get a Spring Boot application into production with AWS. No previous AWS knowledge required.
Go to stratospheric.dev for a tour of the contents.
C++20 - The Complete Guide
Nicolai M. JosuttisAll new language and library features of C++20 (for those who know previous C++ versions).
The book presents all new language and library features of C++20. Learn how this impacts day-to-day programming, to benefit in practice, to combine new features, and to avoid all new traps.
Buy early, pay less, free updates.
Other books:
OpenIntro Statistics
David Diez, Christopher Barr, Mine Cetinkaya-Rundel, and OpenIntroA complete foundation for Statistics, also serving as a foundation for Data Science.
Leanpub revenue supports OpenIntro (US-based nonprofit) so we can provide free desk copies to teachers interested in using OpenIntro Statistics in the classroom and expand the project to support free textbooks in other subjects.
More resources: openintro.org.
node-opcua by example
Etienne RossignonGet the best out of node-opcua through a set of documented examples by the author himself that will allow you to create stunning OPCUA Servers or Clients.
Advanced Web Application Architecture
Matthias NobackThe missing manual for making your web applications future-proof
Jetpack Compose internals
Jorge CastilloJetpack Compose is the future of Android UI. Master how it works internally and become a more efficient developer with it. You'll also find it valuable if you are not an Android dev. This book provides all the details to understand how the Compose compiler & runtime work, and how to create a client library using them.
Ansible for DevOps
Jeff GeerlingAnsible is a simple, but powerful, server and configuration management tool. Learn to use Ansible effectively, whether you manage one server—or thousands.
R Programming for Data Science
Roger D. PengThis book brings the fundamentals of R programming to you, using the same material developed as part of the industry-leading Johns Hopkins Data Science Specialization. The skills taught in this book will lay the foundation for you to begin your journey learning data science. Printed copies of this book are available through Lulu.
Thinking with Types
Sandy MaguireThis book aims to be the comprehensive manual for type-level programming. It's about getting you from here to there---from a competent Haskell programmer to one who convinces the compiler to do their work for them.
Maîtriser Apache JMeter
Philippe Mouawad, Bruno Demion (Milamber), and Antonio Gomes RodriguesToute la puissance d'Apache JMeter expliquée par ses commiteurs et utilisateurs experts. De l'intégration continue en passant par le Cloud, vous découvrirez comment intégrer JMeter à vos processus "Agile" et Devops.
If you're looking for the newer english version of this book, go to Master JMeter : From load testing to DevOps
Top Bundles
- #1
CCIE Service Provider Ultimate Study Bundle
2 Books
Piotr Jablonski, Lukasz Bromirski, and Nick Russo have joined forces to deliver the only CCIE Service Provider training resource you'll ever need. This bundle contains a detailed and challenging collection of workbook labs, plus an extensively detailed technical reference guide. All of us have earned the CCIE Service Provider certification... - #3
Software Architecture
2 Books
"Software Architecture for Developers" is a practical and pragmatic guide to modern, lightweight software architecture, specifically aimed at developers. You'll learn:The essence of software architecture.Why the software architecture role should include coding, coaching and collaboration.The things that you really need to think about before... - #4
Pattern-Oriented Memory Forensics and Malware Detection
2 Books
This training bundle for security engineers and researchers, malware and memory forensics analysts includes two accelerated training courses for Windows memory dump analysis using WinDbg. It is also useful for technical support and escalation engineers who analyze memory dumps from complex software environments and need to check for possible... - #5
Practical FP in Scala + Functional event-driven architecture
2 Books
Practical FP in Scala (A hands-on approach) & Functional event-driven architecture, aka FEDA, (Powered by Scala 3), together as a bundle! The content of PFP in Scala is a requirement to understand FEDA so why not take advantage of this bundle!? - #10
Cloud Architect: Transform Technology and Organization
2 Books
Architects don't just recite product names and features. They understand the options, decisions, and trade-offs behind them. They earn credibility and maintain authenticity by connecting the penthouse with the engine room. Get two essential books that redefine the role of the software and IT architect at one low price:37 Things One Architect...