Desirable Characteristics of Design (Code Complete)

The primary goal of design should be to minimize complexity. Avoid doing \"smart\

Minimize complexity

Ease of maintenance means designing for the maintenance programmer. Constantly imagine the questions the maintenance programmer will have about the code you write. Consider the maintenance programmer as your audience and then design the system to be self-explanatory.

Easy to maintain

Minimum Connectivity

Reusability

Lean

Standardization

Scalability means you can enhance the system without breaking the underlying structure. You can change a part of the system without affecting other parts of the system. The most likely changes cause the least trauma to the system.

Scalability

High fan-in refers to the large number of classes that use a particular class. High fan-in means that a system is well designed to make full use of the lower-level utility classes in the system.

High fan-in

Medium-low fan-out

Portability refers to the design of a system that makes it easy to move it to another environment.

Portability

Layered design

The ideal characteristics of design (Code Complete)