Sandi Metz
Author of Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby and 99 Bottles of OOP, and a teacher of object-oriented design. Her 2014 RailsConf assertion that duplication is cheaper than the wrong abstraction became one of the most-quoted lines in the craft.
Sandi Metz did not write this page.
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Their wordsduplication is far cheaper than the wrong abstraction
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Their wordsExisting code exerts a powerful influence. Its very presence argues that it is both correct and necessary.
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Their wordsIf you find yourself passing parameters and adding conditional paths through shared code, the abstraction is incorrect.
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Their wordsOnce an abstraction is proved wrong the best strategy is to re-introduce duplication and let it show you what's right.