Book Review: Code That Fits in Your Head

Obviously, you must write code such that the resulting software works as desired. That’s no longer the main problem of software engineering. The challenge is to organize it so that it fits in your brain. Code must be humane. – Mark Seemann, Code that fits in your head

The goal of software design is to create chunks or slices that fit into a human mind. The software keeps growing but the human mind maxes out, so we have to keep chunking and slicing differently if we want to keep making changes. – Kent Beck

You should aim for an architecture of your code base so that regardless of where you look, the code fits in your head. At a high level, there’s seven or fewer things going on. In the low-level code, there’s at most seven tings you have to keep track of. At the intermediary level, this still holds. – Mark Seemann, Code that fits in your head

Code That Fits in Your Head

These quotes basically say everything what this book is about.

In this book Mark shows methods, techniques and tactics to organize your code, to organize your working model and the working model of your team such that, if you follow his advice, your code will fit in your head - at the moment when you write it but also months or even years later when you come back to change it.

To illustrate, here are a few questions for which you might find some answers in this book:

• Are checklists still relevant in 2022?
• What is “vertical slicing” and why should I care?
• What does encapsulation really mean?
• Which metrics should I use to detect that my code rots?
• Should I invest in code reviews?
• Is there a better troubleshooting technique than debugging?
• How can I organize the communication in my team to increase productivity?

Are you looking for answers? Get yourself a copy and read the book!