trashing code

Did you see much software having features removed in newer releases, cause I can't actually name a single one. Imagine the product management board saying Hey, customers are not using this feature, let's trash it.

I am not commenting on their behavior, and for good reasons probably, they prefer other methods of "removing" features. One is hiding them from the user by offering a basic vs an advanced interface, or grouping some features under an Advanced menu item, or offering a More things to do step. This way, what they and the GUI designers are doing is protecting the user from the ever increasing GUI complexity, enable them to do things as fast as possible.

In this context, I suggest that you, yes you, the developer in the cube right behind the R3 pole, start thinking about protecting yourself from the ever growing complexity, which we feel both when reading and writing code. A good way to do this is fight back: start controlling the size of the code base.

That being said, this morning I am particularly happy because I see my project fellows throwing away code: today it was a draw, 3 classes added, 3 removed.


Before starting to read IT literature, I thought I was weird feeling this way about throwing away code. But I see there are a lot others feeling the same thing, and they can express the idea much better than me.

So start feeling happy when code gets deleted, it is a sign of healthy code while more features are added to the product.