Software Design for Flexibility: How to Avoid Programming Yourself into a Corner

Description

Strategies for building large systems that can be easily adapted for new situations with only minor programming modifications. Time pressures encourage programmers to write code that works well for a narrow purpose, with no room to grow. But the best systems are evolvable; they can be adapted for new situations by adding code, rather than changing the existing code. The authors describe techniques they have found effective--over their combined 100-plus years of programming experience--that will help programmers avoid programming themselves into corners. The authors explore ways to enhance flexibility by: • Organizing systems using combinators to compose mix-and-match parts, ranging from small functions to whole arithmetics, with standardized interfaces • Augmenting data with independent annotation layers, such as units of measurement or provenance • Combining independent pieces of partial information using unification or propagation • Separating control structure from problem domain with domain models, rule systems and pattern matching, propagation, and dependency-directed backtracking • Extending the programming language, using dynamically extensible evaluators

Get the book

Amazon.com

Search the book

eBay.com

Search the book

Other editions

• 

  Software Design for Flexibility: How to Avoid Programming Yourself into...

  • 2021-03-09
  • 448 pages
  • Paperback
  • MIT Press

Similar books

• 

  Software Design Decoded: 66 Ways Experts Think

  By Marian Petre, André van der Hoek

  This book offers sixty-six insights, distilled from years of studying experts at work, that capture what successful software designers actually do to create great software.

• 

  Software Architect’s Handbook: Become a successful software architect by implementing effective architecture concepts

  By Joseph Ingeno

  What you will learn Design software architectures using patterns and best practices Explore the different considerations for designing software architecture Discover what it takes to continuously improve as a software architect Create ...

• 

  Advances in Multimedia, Software Engineering and Computing Vol.1: Proceedings of the 2011 MESC International Conference on Multimedia, Software Engineering and...

  By David Jin, Sally Lin

  Finally, the conference organization had several preliminary sessions before the conference. Through efforts of different people and departments, the conference will be successful and fruitful.

• 

  Code Simplicity: The Fundamentals of Software

  By Max Kanat-Alexander

  It's not enough just to test out an idea on one product and call it a fact, though, no matter how successful it may be. So once I had a good idea what these facts were, I started brand-new personal projects to see the difference they ...

• 

  Resource Proportional Software Design for Emerging Systems

  By Suparna Bhattacharya, Kanchi Gopinath, Doug Voigt

  Highlights: Analysis of run-time bloat in deep software stacks, an under-explored source of power-performance wastage in IT systems Qualitative and quantitative treatment of key dimensions of resource proportionality Code features: Unify ...

• 

  Flexible Software Design: Systems Development for Changing Requirements

  By Bruce Johnson, Robert Miller, Cindy Johnson

  ... by extending the bars (|) downward to form columns and filling in data values: Person: | Person-ID || Last-Name | Birth-Date | Address | | 123 || Adams | 19410420 | 234 Straight St. | | 234 || Smith | 19580606 | 5555 Dolphin Ave | ...

• 

  How to Design Programs, second edition: An Introduction to Programming and Computing

  By Matthias Felleisen, Robert Bruce Findler, Matthew Flatt

  The environment grows with readers as they master the material in the book until it supports a full-fledged language for the whole spectrum of programming tasks. This second edition has been completely revised.

• 

  Microservices: Flexible Software Architecture

  By Eberhard Wolff

  Readers are challenged to experiment on their own the concepts explained in the book to gain hands-on experience.

• 

  Growing Software: Proven Strategies for Managing Software Engineers

  By Louis Testa

  Testa combines big-picture advice, specific solutions, and real-life anecdotes to teach you how to: –Work effectively with your CEO and executive team –Improve development team efficiency and enthusiasm –Evaluate your software ...

• 

  Flexible Product Development: Building Agility for Changing Markets

  By Preston G. Smith

  In this landmark book, Preston Smith attributes the recent declinein innovation to pressure from financial markets that drivesmanagement toward rigid development approaches such as phaseddevelopment processes, Six Sigma, and project office.