Designing Before Coding

Overview

Write the design in pseudocode BEFORE writing implementation code. Iterate through multiple approaches in pseudocode, pick the best, THEN translate to code.

Core principle: Once you start coding, you get emotionally involved with your code and it becomes harder to throw away a bad design. Design is cheap to change; code is expensive.

Violating the letter of the rules is violating the spirit of the rules.

When to Use

Use for ANY programming task beyond trivial one-liners:

• New features or functionality
• Non-trivial bug fixes
• Refactoring
• Any routine longer than ~5 lines
• When you're unsure how to proceed
• When solution feels complex