Understanding the Four Rules of Simple Design by Corey Haines

I have organized a couple of Coderetreats in 2014 and 2015. I have bought Understanding the Four Rules of Simple Design by Corey Haines in 2015. It was discounted (from $18 to $5) for attendees of Coderetreat. I have read the book then, but the only note I have is “I have mixed feelings”. I have read it on Kindle and I had a hard time reading code. There was no syntax highlighting and Kindle’s screen is so small that even simple code examples from the book did not fit on a page.

I have read the book again, and this time I liked it more. I have read it in PDF format on a laptop and the reading experience was way better. Syntax highlighting and a bigger screen made the reading experience a pleasant one.

How to describe the book? It’s landing page does a really good job.

The only thing we truly know about software development is that we can expect changes to our system. Through concrete examples, let’s explore ways to build flexible, adaptable software systems by better understanding Kent Beck’s 4 Rules of Simple Design.

Examples are from implementing Conway’s Game of Life.