> I've seen clean code lead to over-architected and unmaintainable nightmares
I agree, but surely you wouldn't really say that his end-state in this particular article is more maintainable than the starting point.
I agree, but surely you wouldn't really say that his end-state in this particular article is more maintainable than the starting point.
On the other hand, an abstract base class broadcasts the message that we should fold our new cases into the existing design -- that's what base classes are made for. But even when new cases don't fit neatly in the existing design, we often feel as programmers that we need to pay respect and deference to existing design, especially if it was made with extensibility in mind. And so we add more complexity (maybe we need an extra field or an extra method), make more kludges, and soon enough the original OO design is a mountain of complexity and has so much "gravity" that it's nearly impossible to escape it anymore -- nobody can imagine throwing it out and starting fresh, so it just keeps gaining complexity. And for all its complexity, it's also slower.