Code changes over time. As business requirements change, you need to update your code to reflect that, and the best way to do that is to structure your code and plan for changes before you even know what changes you need to make. Making your code flexible and changeable without making it meaninglessly abstract is the real art of software development.
Unless you’re the document management provider that Daef works with. They have a very different approach for how they integrate new features and custom code paths.
if(CustomerID == 15531) {
cell.Backgroundcolor=Color.Red;
} else {
cell.Backgroundcolor=Color.White;
}
This is just an example. The code base is littered with these sorts of branches, with hard-coded customer IDs creating custom features which apply for only one customer. For now, anyway, because eventually, another customer also wants the same features, and these branches get longer and more complicated, and they frequently gate extremely complex and important business logic. The result is a spaghettified mess.
And don’t worry, this is just the most widely used document management software vendor in Daef’s geography, so it’s not like a lot of companies depend on this software for their daily operations.
Remy Porter
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