Programming first principles – 4. Premise – Minimal information

Video version of this article: https://youtu.be/PozIEc4IApM

Now that we have our requirements, we examine our premises (assumptions).

The first premise is that we can only hold limited information.

This is a consequence of us being human and how the brain works.

Maybe you've heard that we can only remember 7 plus or minus 2 bits of information at any time. (The magical number seven, plus or minus two)

Regardless of the exact truthfulness of that statement, the point remains.

We can only remember / be aware of limited information at any one time.

This article is part of the "Programming first principles series":

1. Purpose - What this series is about
2. Audience - Who this series is for
3. Requirements of software
4. Premise - Minimal information (this article)
5. Premise - We must understand what we're doing
6. Premise - Minimize propagating changes throughout the system
7. Premise - Complexity increases exponentially with scale
8. First principle - Proof that code works
9. First principle - Principle of least astonishment
10. First principle - Principle of least knowledge
11. First principle - Separation of concerns
12. First principle - Abstraction
13. Side effects

Also suggested:

• When not to apply programming principles
• Why code changes are error prone