Wizards of Smart

Glenn Block asked two questions on Twitter tonight that were too good to pass up. First, do you want better tooling, more testable data binding, or a ViewModel base class? I agree with whoever said patterns exist to make up for faults in a language; however, in this case, I think I would choose enhancements to data binding. It’s a little too magical, imho.

I would like to see a ViewModel base eventually, though, as that would be one less thing to wire up myself, and it hopefully silence all the people complaining about the lack of a model in MVC. (Yes, I am thinking the backend models should be sharable among WPF, Silverlight, and MVC.)

Glenn’s second question related to tv target audience. I am always a fan of simple explocicity, to borrow a word from JB. I think that’s what the experts use. Also, I don’t know many who want to me mediocre some day, so going for the best and letting it trickle down is a great idea.

Just my $.02.

I have read a lot about YAGNI lately, especially regarding TDD. The thing that keeps bugging me is the definition of “simple.” Who defines simple? For instance, wouldn’t static methods be simpler than building objects? You could then write more functionally. Or is that not simpler to you? If you follow command-query separation, wouldn’t building everything as either pure functions or commands be simplest? JB and I have found this set of patterns immensely easy to create and test of late, especially in comparison to the ever-increasing-in-complexity procedural/OO code in place before.

So I guess my question is this: Is it really so bad to start with some basic patterns that will let you refactor more easily? I think the desire to make things as simple as possible–especially when you know you will need it–can be a waste of time and a good way of getting bad code into your source.

I know I will hear it from the Agile community that I just don’t get it, but I think I do. I really like starting simple and keeping things in nice, bite-sized testable chunks. And yes, I’m still learning. However, without a consistent and meaningful definition of “simple,” we’re likely to end up with a follow-up movement of making things complex for the sake of extensibility again.

So what do you think: is CQS too complex a starting point, or is it a nice, “simple,” and testable approach for YAGNI?