Occam’s razor is a principle that “entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity.” In software development, I believe strongly that smaller code is better. I humbly call this my “law of software economy.” Another way to state Occam’s razor is “plurality should not be posited without necessity.”

Now you can’t cheat and make your code small by making it intelligible. It is the smallest code that can be easily understood by SOMEONE ELSE! The reason the law of software economy works is because smaller code naturally minimizes the knowledge that objects have of each other (decoupling) and has very little redundancy (cohesion). More knowledge and redundancy takes more lines of code! Reducing lines of code encourages minimizing layers and layers of interfaces that add no value but make software hard to understand. Have the right and minimal set of interfaces. Reducing lines of code also encourages conventions over configuration. If you buy that every line of code is a chance for a bug, then it also improves quality. Writing smaller code is not faster to develop than writing larger code in the short run. However, in the long run, it will inevitably always win the race.

The smaller the software and elegant the architecture the better chance you can hold the design in your head. The the ultimate position of power is to have a god like knowledge of the system. If you have excessive and overly engineered code, trying to keep it between your ears is like playing musical chairs. Good luck with that.

Categories: The art of software development