This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Felix Coutinho
There was a time when programming standards and good practices were created in silos. Big companies like IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Sun and even NASA had their best practice manuals and some kept it as secret as they did with industrial secrets. As the practice of developing software became more common, not so large companies started to create their own software and the desire for standardization became increasingly evident, as is the goal of all industrial practices.
Over the years, the Software Engineering literature has established a series of standards and good practices that have taken software development to an industrial level. Design patterns, paradigms, principles, concepts and techniques were established over time so that the source code produced would have a more industrial and less personal character. Furthermore, introducing these best practices allows the source code to be better understood, better maintainable and at a lower cost for everyone, programmers and companies.
This level of maturity has allowed software development to become a reproducible discipline anywhere in the world, a true engineering.
However, many of these standards have been thought, grounded, tested and established in silos. Real problems in real teams and companies but that do not necessarily reproduce the scenario that a developer lives. In addition, these concepts are often mutually exclusive, when applying one of them you cannot apply the other.
Just as the lack of standards is a problem for the source code produced, too many of them can be a problem. It is in this context that we can establish the Highly Standardized Code Syndrome.
The Highly Standardized Code Syndrome occurs when a software developer believes he needs to use as many design patterns as possible, principles, concepts and techniques that exist in the literature or in the market, consequently his code takes a long time to be produced, and he believes that this will guarantee the final quality of the code produced.
One exercise for software developers, architects and engineers is to find the right balance when applying existing standards. The simplest formula we can establish is problem, scenario and solution. Wait until you have a problem and then you can find a solution within your scenario. Otherwise the result will be an excess of solutions to problems you don't have which will very possibly result in the Highly Standardized Code Syndrome. The developer will have spent a lot of time on problems he doesn't have.
Image by Flavio Copes via Twitter
[This is a theory under construction and can be changed at any time]
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Felix Coutinho
Felix Coutinho | Sciencx (2022-02-01T22:10:33+00:00) Highly Standardized Code Syndrome. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2022/02/01/highly-standardized-code-syndrome/
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