Be pragmatic – The most important principle

Pragmatic means to remember the true goal of what you’re trying to accomplish, maximize that, and not get sidetracked.

In programming, you aim to:

• have code that works correctly
• make your changes as quickly and efficiently as possible
• make the code easy and fast to work with for the next time someone works on it

<aside> 💡 The programming principles are guidelines to help you do that. But, your aims come first. If a programming principle will be detrimental to your aims, you shouldn’t apply it.

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Be Empathic

Some Basic Design Principles

Have code that’s short (the guideline), but only if it makes the code simpler and easier to understand (your aims).

You need to prioritize based on value. That usually means keeping code pretty clean and refactoring when needed. But it probably doesn’t mean spending an unreasonable amount of time refactoring for almost no benefit.

Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS)

KISS (keep it simple stupid) is another principle that’s universal to most things in life. It means that your code should be simple and easy to understand.

The principle of least astonishment means that things should work exactly as you expect them to, they shouldn’t be surprising. It’s a cousin to KISS.

• Default to writing dumb code, avoid writing clever code
• Keep code short
• Use good names
• Always consider the programmer reading the code for the first time
• Consider immutability (never reassigning the values of variables)