Pragmatic Programmer Notları

Pragmatic Programmer programlama konusundaki harika kitaplardan biri ve uzun süredir okumaya başlamayı düşünüyordum. Bugün safari hesabımı tekrar açtırdım ve okumaya başladım ve ilk bölümün ortalarındayım.

Kitaptan bazı notlar alıyorum, aldığım notların bir kısmı:

One broken window, left unrepaired for any substantial length of time, instills in the inhabitants of the building a sense of abandonment—a sense that the powers that be don't care about the building. So another window gets broken. People start littering. Graffiti appears. Serious structural damage begins. In a relatively short space of time, the building becomes damaged beyond the owner's desire to fix it, and the sense of abandonment becomes reality.

The "Broken Window Theory" has inspired police departments in New York and other major cities to crack down on the small stuff in order to keep out the big stuff. It works: keeping on top of broken windows, graffiti, and other small infractions has reduced the serious crime level.

Don't Live with Broken Window

Even if there's a fire raging (deadline, release date, trade show demo, etc.), you don't want to be the first one to make a mess

Remember the Big Picture

We've never tried this—honest. But they say that if you take a frog and drop it into boiling water, it will jump straight back out again. However, if you place the frog in a pan of cold water, then gradually heat it, the frog won't notice the slow increase in temperature and will stay put until cooked.

Note that the frog's problem is different from the broken windows issue discussed in Section 2. In the Broken Window Theory, people lose the will to fight entropy because they perceive that no one else cares. The frog just doesn't notice the change.

Know Where to stop
But artists will tell you that all the hard work is ruined if you don't know when to stop. If you add layer upon layer, detail over detail, the painting becomes lost in the paint.