There’s a concept from compiler optimization called Local Reasoning that I have stolen because I think the name applies at least as well to ergonomics/DevEx concerns.
A good deal of bad code design comes down to not being able to predict what a bit of code is going to do without stopping everything, unrolling whatever built up state you had in your mind (from the thing you were actually trying to do) and sit and become one with the code for a time. But at least when you’re unsure what the code is doing you have a suspicion that is the case. The worse sin by far is misdirecting you into thinking it does one thing when it does something else, or even the opposite.
We like to complain about extroverted business people interrupting us, but we seem to have very little guilt about doing it to each other by leaving these sorts of time bombs in our code.
A good deal of bad code design comes down to not being able to predict what a bit of code is going to do without stopping everything, unrolling whatever built up state you had in your mind (from the thing you were actually trying to do) and sit and become one with the code for a time. But at least when you’re unsure what the code is doing you have a suspicion that is the case. The worse sin by far is misdirecting you into thinking it does one thing when it does something else, or even the opposite.
We like to complain about extroverted business people interrupting us, but we seem to have very little guilt about doing it to each other by leaving these sorts of time bombs in our code.