Programmers face a software design dilemma hourly--I need to change this code, it's messy, do I tidy first? The answer is, of course, it depends. It depends on coupling/cohesion, economics, psychology, & teamwork. These are the same factors affecting all software design decisions but here we can study them under a microscope.
Speaker
Kent Beck
Original Signer of the Agile Manifesto, Author of the Extreme Programming Book Series, Rediscoverer of Test-Driven Development
Kent Beck is a programmer, creator of Extreme Programming, pioneer of software patterns, JUnit, the rediscovery of Test-Driven Development, 3X: Explore/Expand/Extract, & the Tidy First? series of books on software design. Beck is also alphabetically the first signatory of the Agile Manifesto. He lives in San Francisco, California and works for Studio Beck, teaching skills helping geeks feel safe in the world.
