Simplicity (Pragmatic Bookshelf)

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Dave Thomas @pragdave

edited by Susannah Davidson @susannahd

Software development is inherently complex, but it needn’t be as complicated as we make it. Learn to recognize and deal with the gnarly stuff, and your job is simpler, your code is easier to create and to work with, and you are more effective. You won’t find a bunch of rules, practices, and clever acronyms here. There are no best practices, because there’s no such thing as a best practice. You’ll cut through real-world complexities to discover and amplify what works best for you in your current context.

Thirty-three practices. They’re not about changing the world, or your team, or your company. They are about you, and how you can make your work simpler, more humane, and more effective.

Reclaim the original spirit of agility (by following a three-word list on an index card). Reduce bloat. Communicate better with fewer meetings. Optimize your environment and tools. Plan for an uncertain future. Reduce confrontations. Synthesize fresh ideas. And let’s not forget the code. Flip the role that data plays to simplify your source code and make it easier to work with.

Simplicity doesn’t mean simplistic or naïve. It means producing work that is easy to understand and change, and that somehow feels right. It means making the stuff you create tidy and intuitive to work with; you focus on what’s meaningful and eliminate distractions. You embrace clarity and minimalism, stripping away the unnecessary to reveal what truly matters.

Simplicity is not absolute. What is simple to one person may not be to another. So this book has no rules. Instead, it looks at what makes development complex and then illustrates approaches you can take toward simplification.

Simplicity isn’t the way you do things; it’s the spirit with which you do them. It’s about you, and what works for you.

Dave Thomas is an author of both the Manifesto for Agile Software Development and The Pragmatic Programmer. He’s been writing code for over 50 years and hopes one day to get it right. He helped introduce Ruby, Rails, and Elixir to the world and is a founder of the Pragmatic Bookshelf.