"Hemingway was famous for a terse minimalist style of writing that dispensed with flowery adjectives and got straight to the point. In short, Hemingway wrote with simple genius.
"Perhaps his finest demonstration of short sentence prowess was when he was challenged to tell an entire story in only 6 words:
"For sale: baby shoes, never used."
Every now and then you come across code that's as good as that, and when you do it's a wonder to behold.
Shamelessly plugging a little site I put together a couple months ago in hopes of inspiring more stories of this form (inspired by a Wired article): http://sixisenough.com
Another programmer blog by someone who hasn't heard of Don't Repeat Yourself yet.
A lot of this stuff just boils down to Don't Repeat Yourself. If all substantial ideas in your codebase are only expressed once, then changing your mind about any idea in your system is easy.
It's common sense applied a few steps farther. In the short term, cut & paste can get your job done fast. But after the 12th cut & paste followed by another change in requirements, it starts to look not so good.
"Hemingway was famous for a terse minimalist style of writing that dispensed with flowery adjectives and got straight to the point. In short, Hemingway wrote with simple genius.
"Perhaps his finest demonstration of short sentence prowess was when he was challenged to tell an entire story in only 6 words:
"For sale: baby shoes, never used."
Every now and then you come across code that's as good as that, and when you do it's a wonder to behold.