- Step 1: Eliminate All Assumptions
- Step 2: Don't Be Afraid to Standardize
- Step 3: Live by the Golden Rule of Programming
- Step 4: Build Upon a Foundation of Smart Error Coding
Step 2: Don't Be Afraid to Standardize
Standardization is essential to effective reuse. Without standardized interfaces and coding, code cannot be easily and consistently integrated and maintained. You end up having to write very inconsistent code to accommodate all the various strategies adopted by the authors of the routines you reuse.
Get over the fear that standardization makes more work or reduces creative input. On the contrary, adopting a good standard coding architecture frees you up dramatically from the mundane, time-consuming parts of programming to do more interesting, nonrepetitive work.
If your standard creates more work rather than less, your standard is not elegant enough. If it inhibits creativity rather than facilitating it, it's too rigid.