Tidy First? A Daily Practice of Empirical Software Design

The economic rationale for software design is increased revenue & decreased cost. The relationship rationale for software design is to encourage trust through a steady delivery of value. The humane rationale for software design is to care for & encourage the growth of the geeks working on the software &, by extension, care for & encourage the growth of those affected by geeky decisions.

A short list of principles & observations serves to explain why satisfying all these rationales is difficult--coupling & cohesion, time value versus optionality, power laws. The same list suggests a way forward for software designers in a complicated, conflicted, uncertain, & deeply human world--large changes in small, safe steps.

We'll start with a 10x/day situation--you need to change some messy code. Do you tidy first? (Spoiler: likely yes, only as much as you need for now.)