Beyond Legacy Code

To Be a Practice

Principles are important, but principles alone are not enough. We also need ways of achieving principles in practical situations and that’s what practices are for.

I use strict criteria for defining a practice. In order for something to be a practice it must

• provide value at least most of the time,
• be easy to learn and easy to teach others,
• be simple to do—so simple, in fact, that you can do it without thinking about it.

When a practice fulfills these three conditions, then it can easily propagate among a team and its benefits compound. You can just do the practice and it automatically saves time and effort on an ongoing basis.

The nine practices in this book represent a core set of high-value practices that are often misunderstood ...