Software Design: Tidy First?

Survival, Cash Flow, & Options

Tidy Together chapter

Kent Beck's avatar
Kent Beck
Jul 11, 2025
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Why the most important design decision is sometimes not to design at all

The visualization in the previous chapter—features versus options—captures much of the economic reality of software development. But there's a deeper force at work, one that took me decades to fully appreciate.

Two years ago I read Ergodicity by Luca Dellanna. The core insight hit me…

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