Things I Learnt The Hard Way - Thinking Data Flow Beats Patterns

When you're trying to find a solution to your problem, think on the way the data will flow through your code.

Instead of focusing on design patterns, a better way is to think the way the data will flow -- and be transformed -- on your code.

For example, the user will input a number. You'll get this number and find the respective record on the database. This is a transformation -- no, it's not "I'll get the number and receive a complete different thing based upon it", you're actually transforming the number into a record, using the database as a transformation.

(Yes, I know, it's not that clear at the first glance, but you have to think that they are the same data with different representations.)

Most of the time I did that, I managed to come with more clear design for my applications. I didn't even think about how many functions/classes it would be needed to do these kind of transformations, that was something I came up after I could see the data flow.

In a way, this way of thinking gets things more clear 'cause you have a list of steps of transformations you need to do, so you can write them one after another, which prevents a lot of bad code in the future.