[sldev] Re: Plugin architecture

Adam W awolenc at nycap.rr.com
Sat Feb 24 07:33:23 PST 2007


Hi, all.
I'm new to open source, but not new to programming, and certainly not new to
sitting down at the computer and writing code without a plan.
My (innocent) question is, what happens when you code yourself into a
corner, and realize you should have done it diffenerently, but now its too
late, because everyone else already expects it to be the way it is.  You
can't undo what you've already released to the community.
How do you back yourself out of mistakes, under this system?
Adam

-----Original Message-----
From: sldev-bounces at lists.secondlife.com
[mailto:sldev-bounces at lists.secondlife.com] On Behalf Of Callum Lerwick
Sent: Saturday, February 24, 2007 09:07
To: sldev at lists.secondlife.com
Subject: Re: [sldev] Re: Plugin architecture

On Fri, 2007-02-23 at 20:37 -0800, Rob Lanphier wrote:

> I'm kinda skeptical that you'd get it right on the first crack.

Exactly. No one in the world is going to get it right on the first
crack. It doesn't happen that way. It just doesn't. That is why
expecting to have a complete design done before writing any code is a
waste of time, because your design is going to be wrong. Guaranteed.

Embracing this reality is the essence of "Extreme Programming" or "Agile
Development" or whatever they're calling it these days, as well as being
a cornerstone of open source development.

Besides, http://c2.com/xp/TheSourceCodeIsTheDesign.html

"Design is not something that you do only before you code.
Implementation is not the act of coding."

At this point the plugin architecture is a solution looking for a
problem. YAGNI. Its all a pointless waste of time until there's an
actual need. Not a hypothetical one. Once there's an actual need, the
way forward becomes clear. Just write code, the rest will follow.




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