Big Ball of Mud (1999)

Sometimes a big ball of mud is exactly what’s needed. Undertale has a single giant switch statement thousands of cases long for every line of dialog in the game. There are other stories of how infamously bad the code is. And none of that mattered one bit. Banks are another example. The software is horrible. Everyone knows it. Yet all that’s required is minimally working software that fails rarely enough that the bank can maintain their lock in. Believe it…

Every time this is posted I forget and think it's going to be about the art form that is, roughly, a big ball of mud that's polished ridiculously smooth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorodango

The essay is a classic. > Shantytowns are squalid, sprawling slums. What is it that they are doing right? > Shantytowns are usually built from common, inexpensive materials and simple tools. Shantytowns can be built using relatively unskilled labor. This is a powerful metaphor, and I see it often in code. If you've ever seen an API gateway written using the same web framework as the other services, where in order to route "/external/order" to "/internal/order", the first step steps…

This is a good, readable paper, with clever pictures to illustrate the points. Many of the ideas in it are well known (especially if you are already familiar with XP). I like the fact that the authors recognize that the BIG BALL OF MUD architecture is successful (in the sense that many working systems have this architecture – or rather lack of architecture). In the paper, they describe the BIG BALL OF MUD architecture, and several related patterns on how…