I’ve been developing software for many years now. Decades. I’ve learned a lot along the way, and I dare to think that I’ve collected some wisdom about software development worth sharing with others. At some point, you think “Yeah, I’ve got a grip on this thing.”
And every once in a while, you have some revelation that is the culmination of what you’ve learned along the way. I’ll never forget the moment I understood dependency injection. Of course you would want to pass in an abstraction rather than create an implementation!
I had a similar revelation this week. I’m sure there are plenty of sager developers among you who have already figured this out, but it struck me suddenly that really good software design is all about keeping your options open for as long as possible—that you should defer any decisions to the very last minute.
Now, this seems counter-intuitive. We’ve always been told to plan everything out ahead of time. That we shouldn’t start the project without having thought about every detail that can be thought about. That we need to figure it out now so there are no surprises.
I can just imagine the conversation:
Engineering director: “How’s the planning going on the new project?”
Development lead: “Great, we’re ready to get started.”
Engineering director: “What database did you pick?”
Development lead: “Haven’t decided yet.”
Engineering director: “Authentication?”
Development lead: “Not yet.”
Engineering director: “Wait… what?!”
