Another option to make your system ready for the future is to make it as simple as possible. If it does exactly what it needs to do with no duplication, you'll have the flexibility to add necessary complexity.

Sure, provided that:

1. You write unit tests to make sure that your necessarily complex additions (heh) don't break anything, and
2. Your code is sufficiently decoupled that adding new components doesn't involve (excessive) changes to old.

Both of these requirements are more easily met with simple software than with complex, "try to predict the future" designs. I need to tell myself that about once a week, on a good week. :-) I guess my point is that just making your software simple isn't enough, although it's a big help.

--
F o x t r o t U n i f o r m
Found a typo in this node? /msg me
The hell with paco, vote for Erudil!

---

---

Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!

Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.

Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.

Please read these before you post! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:

a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr

You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)

	For:		Use:
	&		&
	<		&lt;
	>		&gt;
	[		&#91;
	]		&#93;

Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?

See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.