Post-Architecture: Premature Abstraction Is the Root of All Evil

As the philosopher John Dewey wrote, “The way in which [a] problem is conceived decides what specific suggestions are entertained and which are dismissed.”

In most projects, the first system built is barely usable. It may be too slow, too big, awkward to use, or all three. There is no alternative but to start again, smarting but smarter, and build a redesigned version in which these problems are solved. The discard and redesign may be done in one lump, or it may be done piece-by-piece. But all large-s

Many poor systems come from an attempt to salvage a bad basic design and patch it with all kinds of cosmetic relief. Top-down design reduces the temptation. I am persuaded that top-down design is the most important new programming formalization of the decade.

Architects shouldn’t constantly seek out silver-bullet solutions to their problems; they are as rare now as in 1986, when Fred Brooks coined the term: There is no single development, in either technology or management technique, which by itself promises even one order of magnitude [tenfold] improvement within a decade in productivity, in reliabilit