PragPub 2012-04: Issue #34 by The Pragmatic Bookshelf

Author:The Pragmatic Bookshelf
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: PragPub—Monthly Magazine
Publisher: The Pragmatic Bookshelf, LLC
Published: 2012-04-01T04:00:00+00:00

The Pragmatic Defense

Making Defects Easier to Find

by Jim Bonang

Jim shows how to write methods with built-in defenses that allow you to quickly find the fault underlying a failure.

Chess grandmaster Vladimir Kramnik famously used the Berlin Defense in his victory over Gary Kasparov in 2000. Such standard chess openings employ a combination of moves that strengthen a player’s defensive posture and provide a sound foundation for the attack. Novice players often neglect such defensive techniques, a failing immediately apparent to more experienced opponents. As programmers, we too can neglect our defenses, allowing defects to gain the upper hand. And defects wreak havoc: effort is devoted to eliminating errors rather than creating new functionality, schedules slip, projects are canceled. No opponent shows less mercy.

However, several mutually supportive software development techniques, employed systematically, much like a standard opening in chess, will shore up our defenses.

You’re likely familiar with many of these techniques already; they include coding idioms, guidelines and processes:

Boolean Return Values for Methods

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