Software Design: Tidy First?

Thinkies

Thinkie: Latency, Throughput, & Variance

Kent Beck's avatar
Kent Beck
Aug 13, 2024
∙ Paid

Pattern: Someone says, “I need you to go faster!” You’re going as fast as you can. What do you do?

Transformation: The situation is under-constrained. “Go faster!” can mean any of several things. Find out which, then bias towards reducing variance first.

I ordered my first Waymo autonomous ride last night. When I arrived I realized that I was much more re…

User's avatar

Continue reading this post for free, courtesy of Kent Beck.

Or purchase a paid subscription.
© 2026 Kent Beck · Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start your SubstackGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture