Question

Where do you draw the line to stop making abstractions and to start writing sane code? There are tons of examples of ‘enterprise code’ such as the dozen-file ‘FizzBuzz’ program… even something simple such as an RTS game can have something like:

class Player {} ;/// contains Weapons class Weapons{} ;/// contains BulletTypes class BulletType{} ;///contains descriptions of Bullets  class Bullet{} ;///extends PlaceableObject and RenderableObject which can be placed/drawn respectively class PlaceableObject{} ;///has x,y,z, coords class RenderableObject{} ;///an object with a draw() command class MovingObject{}; ///an object with a move() function 

etc… and it can turn into a nightmare. This can be drawn to its logical extreme, much like functional programming can be drawn to the extreme where you can create a language with only variables, function application, and anonymous function definitions (although I must admit that is slightly more elegant)…

Any sane advice on this topic?

Answer 1

1. YAGNI (You Ain’t Gotta Need It). Don’t create abstractions you don’t see immediate use for or a sensible reason. This way you have a simple thing that may become more complex, instead of a complicated things that you would strive to make simpler, but lose.
2. Make sure the abstractions make sense. If they’re too far from reality, too hard to justify… forget it.
3. Let the solution feel natural. Work on it until it does. Then for an unfamiliar person the solution should seem so obvious, that he screams ‘how could you have done it differently?’.
4. Don’t try to predict the future. You can’t. If you try to cover all 10 possible cases, you will soon discover 11th and more, and it will be more difficult to implement it because of previous 10, not encountered in practice. Make it simple and easy to adapt. Software needs to be changed, but ease of adaptation (agility) is often much better strategy than trying to cover all maybe-possible cases up-front.