Keeping the balance

8th Light Apprenticeship - Day 29

I was eager to demo my new console, complete with validation this morning. More so, I was keen to show the code that I had spent many an hour working on.

It was pointed out that in removing the duplication in the validation loops, I had increased the number of classes by about 7. This can have a maintenance and complexity overhead. It was also suggested that perhaps, I could have stopped refactoring at an earlier stage. Maybe the duplication didn’t need to be completely eliminated. It’s all about the balance.

During the apprenticeship you push your learning to the limits, and yourself. Part of me wanted to prove, to myself, that I could remove the duplication. I didn’t want to show it and be told there was duplication when I already knew that. However now I realise that the fact I had identified the duplication was a good thing, and the fact that I made a conscious decision as to how to address it was a good thing, and that going forwards when faced with similar situations, the conscious decision to leave it may also be the right thing. It’s all about the balance.