Martin Fowler: Programming

Martin Fowler is British programmer. Explore interesting quotes on programming.

Martin Fowler: 36 quotes1 like

“When you find you have to add a feature to a program, and the program's code is not structured in a convenient way to add the feature, first refactor the program to make it easy to add the feature, then add the feature.”

Source: Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code, 1999, p. 7

“Steve Mellor and I independently came up with a characterization of the three modes in which people use the UML: sketch, blueprint, and programming language. By far the most common of the three, at least to my biased eye, is UML as sketch. In this usage, developers use the UML to help communicate some aspects of a system. As with blueprints, you can use sketches in a forward-engineering or reverse-engineering direction. Forward engineering draws a UML diagram before you write code, while reverse engineering builds a UML diagram from existing code in order to help understand it.”

Source: A Brief Guide to the Standard Object Modeling Language, 2004, p. 2

“Graphical design notations have been with us for a while… their primary value is in communication and understanding. A good diagram can often help communicate ideas about a design, particularly when you want to avoid a lot of details. Diagrams can also help you understand either a software system or a business process. As part of a team trying to figure out something, diagrams both help understanding and communicate that understanding throughout a team. Although they aren't, at least yet, a replacement for textual programming languages, they are a helpful assistant… Of these graphical notations, the UML's importance comes from its wide use and standardization within the OO development community. The UML has become not only the dominant graphical notation within the OO world but also a popular technique in non-OO circles.”

Source: UML Distilled: A Brief Guide to the Standard Object Modeling, 2004, p. xxvi

“One of the things I've been trying to do is look for simpler or rules underpinning good or bad design. I think one of the most valuable rules is avoid duplication. "Once and only once" is the Extreme Programming phrase.”

Martin Fowler as cited in: James Shore, Shane Warden (2007) The Art of Agile Development. p. 319