Keep It Simple teaches a practical framework for creating and maintaining simple software designs and code, so systems stay easier to understand, modify, and maintain as they evolve.
Why This Course Exists
Complexity rarely appears all at once. It accumulates through small decisions that quietly make systems harder to understand, modify, and maintain.
As complexity grows, development slows. Simple work requires more effort than it should. Changes become harder to implement, and design and code drift away from simple enough.
Keep It Simple was created to help developers recognize and prevent that drift before unnecessary complexity hardens into the system.
What You'll Learn
You'll learn how to get off the blank page by starting with the simplest design that could possibly work, keep design and code simple while building, and recognize when systems have become overly simple, overly complex, or already simple enough.
Specifically, you'll learn how to avoid designing for imaginary future requirements, balance simplicity with practical development tradeoffs, evaluate existing code before simplifying it, and use practical guidelines and questions to prevent unnecessary complexity from creeping into design and code over time.
What's Included
Three focused lessons built around The Simple Cycle: Start Simple, Keep It Simple, and Stop At Simple Enough.
Practical guidelines, questions, decision tools, guided exercises, and Success Work to help you apply the ideas to real development work.
Examples drawn from real software development work, including balancing simplicity with cost of change, avoiding unnecessary abstraction, and evaluating existing code before simplifying it.
Total runtime is approximately 70 minutes, with additional exercises and Success Work designed to help you continue applying the ideas after the course is complete.
Keep It Simple is part of the Coding Best Practices pillar of the Mastering Software Developer Productivity series.
Pricing
Early Access Price: $49
Standard Price: $149
Push back against unnecessary complexity before it reduces your productivity.
