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June 21, 2019June 10, 2019 Common Anti-Patterns

The Swiss Army Knife AntiPattern

A swiss army knife is a great tool to carry around with you. However, this anti-pattern tells us that building a one-stop-shop for your design functionality is a wrong approach. Several problems arise when you throw almost everything into a single class. Defining the Swiss Army Knife Anti-Pattern I found a good blog post on this anti-pattern to provide our definition. The article focuses on an interface, but it holds for a class in general as well. [Click Here to See The Page] “Swiss Army Knife Interface is an interface class which has excessive number of method definitions. Architect/designer may design this interface to use for every need of the software, but this is a wrong approach and an antipattern.... Read more

June 19, 2019June 10, 2019 Common Anti-Patterns

Architecture By Implication – An Easy Anti-Pattern to Fall Into

While experience is an excellent teacher, it is not a silver bullet. Every problem we tackle is a little different. Thus, we should follow best practices even when we think we have done this all before. When we instead believe we can take short-cuts, we are likely to be practicing architecture by implication. Defining the Architecture By Implication Anti-Pattern We go with a lengthy definition this time around. I recommend you check out the whole page for even more details about this problem. [Click Here to See The Page] “This AntiPattern is characterized by the lack of architecture specifications for a system under development. Usually, the architects responsible for the project are experienced with previous system construction, and assume that documentation is... Read more

June 17, 2019June 8, 2019 Common Anti-Patterns

The Grand Old Duke of York Anti-Pattern

The skills of writing code and abstracting functionality are not the same. This fact is why the Grand old Duke of York is an anti-pattern. Passing around essential tasks like design is not a practical approach. We should set up a team, so the people that are best at a job are the ones doing it. Defining the Grand Old Duke of York Anti-Pattern This particular pattern is not easy to define. Instead, we will jump right to the problem in setting the stage for this anti-pattern. [Click Here to See The Page] “Programming skill does not equate to skill in defining abstractions. There appear to be two distinct groups involved in software development: abstractionists and their counterparts (whom we... Read more

June 14, 2019June 8, 2019 Common Anti-Patterns

Design By Committee – A More is Less Anti-pattern

There is an old saw about too many cooks spoiling the broth. This statement roughly describes the design by committee anti-pattern. While two heads may be better than one for most problems, there is a diminishing return as we add more “heads” to the mix. At its worst, we end up with a design by committee situation. Defining the Design By Committee Anti-Pattern The comments on the definition at the WhatIs.com site provides some excellent food for thought on this anti-pattern. [Click Here to See The Page] “Design by committee is a term sometimes used to describe a design that is flawed because too many people provided input. The phrase implies a lack of a coherent vision and, perhaps as... Read more

June 12, 2019June 3, 2019 Common Anti-Patterns

The Warm Bodies AntiPattern – Not a Cool Situation

We all know that more is always better except when it is not. The challenge of quality and quantity is a common anti-pattern for software development. We take a look at it in this episode about the warm bodies approach. Defining the Warm Bodies Anti-Pattern There are several definitions of this anti-pattern. In this episode, we use the Daxx site definition to drive our discussion. [Click Here to See The Page] “This antipattern seems, at first, to have more to do with the structure of your company than the structure of your software. That being said, problems with the former can have unfortunate consequences for the latter. “Warm bodies” are people who work for your company, but aren’t deeply invested... Read more

June 10, 2019May 31, 2019 Common Anti-Patterns

Autogenerated Stovepipe – An Anti-Pattern

In an effort to re-use our previous work, we can over-simplify a solution. One such situation is when we grow from a stand-alone system to a distributed one. This particular anti-pattern is a facet of the autogenerated stovepipe. Even the best solution in one case is not always going to be a good one to move to an enterprise or a distributed approach. Defining the Autogenerated Stovepipe Anti-Pattern There are several definitions of this anti-pattern. In this episode, we use the source-making definition to drive our discussion. [Click Here to See The Page] “This AntiPattern occurs when migrating an existing software system to a distributed infrastructure. An Autogenerated Stovepipe arises when converting the existing software interfaces to distributed interfaces. If... Read more