Keynote: Tidy First? A Daily Exercise in Empirical Design
summary
Argues that software design is primarily about human relationships and economics, not aesthetics, backing this with original definitions from Structured Design, Net Present Value reasoning, and power‑law evidence that most cost is future change. Recommends interleaving small design steps with features, using tidy first judgments, reducing expensive coupling is when changing one requires changing the other ripple effects, and making refactors interruptible via the parallels pattern so new and old designs coexist until migration completes.
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chapters (12)
- 0:00Keynote introduction
- 0:48Software design value
- 3:41Tidy First book
- 8:20Feature and system cycles
- 11:46Human constraints
- 17:08Economic constraints
- 23:13Optionality in design
- 27:39Coupling and cohesion
- 38:11Design constraints growth
- 44:24Interruptibility practice
- 46:37AI and programming jobs
- 51:59Q&A
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